By: Jesse Striewski
What started off once upon a time as a promising parody act has more than worn itself painfully thin by now. Steel Panther have been riding the coat tails of one lame crude joke for over a decade now, and their fifth studio effort finds the guys still trying to stretch the limits of their already-strained imaginations.
Heavy Metal Rules offers little new to their schlock rock brand past tracks with more uber-obscene lyrics and titles that only the most juvenile of minds would find humorous, such as “All I Wanna Do is Fuck (Myself Tonight)” and “Gods of Pussy.” The title track is virtually the only song on the whole album even worth going back for a second listen, and the album’s cover is probably the most enticing thing about the record as a whole.
There’s no denying the musicians in Steel Panther harbor an abundance of talent, but it’s being tragically squandered away by the trash they continue to spew. The joke has more than expired, and about the only thing left for them to do at this point would be to record an actual, straight-forward heavy metal album; they might just gain some new interest (not to mention respect) if they’d just cut the crap for once and, well, grow up already.
Rating: 1/5 Stars
