Hooray for The L.A. Guns.  I was secretly hoping that someone would make a Christmas record and I wasn’t bothered if it was original or cover versions to be fair I just wanted it to be good and low and behold who steps up to the plate with an EP of Christmas themed bangers but my old muckers The L.A. Guns.  Now I raved about their new album (rightly so)  and I loved Cuts when they did that EP especially the Japanese version because it had more tracks and ones that should have been more widely available because they were so good.  Anyway I digress.  L.A. Guns whilst toured and seemed happy to be lumped in with a lot of absolute dross in the 80s and onwards and haven’t always made it easy to follow the band and what they were doing and to negotiate the often soap opera goings on with the bands personal but when they did settle down and let the music do the talking they were more than a step up from a lot of if not 99.9% of the hair metal tosh they were wrongly lumped in with. those early records were great and still sound great and when they went over the edge they twisted the melon and introduced a little Gothic flavour into the mix but they also always had taste outside america, maybe due to Phil and his previous workings but covering Generation X and the Damned always sounded fantastic to me and the versions they did showed they were people who got it and understood the task they were facing.  Lots of band fuck it up and miss the point so badly but not the Guns. So, Onto 2019 and this Christmas offering well, it might only be an EP of five tunes but one is a Ramones cover, a Slade cover and A Damned cover whilst for the opener they bring out William Shatner for a cover of the Billy Squire tune ‘The Bills/Christmas Is The Time To Say I Love You’.

Now don’t snigger at the back this is serious. bloody brilliant having the Shats on the intro is classic.  All hail the L.A. Guns and Shats you guys nailed it. There are those who say you shouldn’t touch a classic especially one like Slades Merry Christmas Everybody’  but fuck it, they nailed it again and obviously Lewis is no Holder but they take on a beast of Christmas tunes and own it. ‘Dreidel’ lasts nine seconds what else can I say?  Now onto the highlight of the EP and the Damned  ‘(There Ain’t No) Sanity Clause’ and again they prove they just get it and a finer Christmas tune doesn’t exist so I’ll take this every day of the week.  Well done you lot. To finish it off the Ramones ‘Merry Christmas I Don’t Want To Fight Tonight)’ is exactly what you’d expect of a Ramones cover of this nature.

That’s it in a nutshell an admirable effort that hits the spot and when anyone round my gaff asks for some Christmas tunes I know what I’ll be playing.  Same time next year boys?

Author: Dom Daley