Album/EP

Steel Panther - On The Prowl (Album Review)

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Heavy Metal Wordsmith

Feb 26, 2023

7 min read

Steel Panther – On The Prowl
Released: February 24th, 2023

Lineup:

Michael Starr | Lead Vocals
Satchel | Lead Guitar
Spyder | Bass Guitar
Stix Zadinia | Drums

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Now before you throw Steel Panther’s new album On The Prowl in your tape player, here’s a few reminders of what you can do before you start:

Make sure you’ve stocked the fridge, packed your pipe and laid your mirror flat on the coffee table. Listening to a Steel Panther album is always a party.
Make sure you play this to your Grandmother. It’s likely going to be played loud enough for her to hear, plus she probably fucked these guys back in the 80’s
Warn the neighbours or invite them over. It’s not going to be a quiet affair.
Crank that stereo up to as high as it’ll fucking go. SP doesn't play the type of music that you put on low as you drive the kiddies to school.
If anyone within the vicinity of the stereo is easily offended then its best they fuck off in the direction of somewhere with sand and bury their head in it.
Remember (and this is important) that everyone is into something different and regardless of how absurd a particular scenario is to you, if you can think of it, someone somewhere is into it. Chance’s are one of your mates likes sporting a nappy while wearing a dog collar and being fake sheared as they listen to the Shaun The Sheep theme song.

I grab a beer, load the album onto my old guy record player, drop the needle and it’s like I’ve taken the old DeLorean for a spin and I’m back in the 80’s all over again. The lads kickstart proceedings with opening single and all round banger ‘Never Too Late (To Get Some Pussy Tonight)’. It’s a party starter that Andrew W.K. would be jealous of. This belter takes the opportunity to welcome in new member (heh…member), hard rocking bassist and long time friend of the band, Spyder. The song also serves as a passing of the torch from fan favourite Lexxi Foxx, who left a few years back because he, according to Satchel, “decided to go do gay porn for a living”. It’s a rocking song that kicked a little bit of arse when SP toured here last October (our Sydney coverage here).

Whoever runs SP’s socials should start banging out TikTok’s containing lines from the next track, 'Friends With Benefits', because it is chockers full of the best one liners on the planet. A rocking number with pearlers like:

“You get to drive my Maserati, I get to shower in your piss”

-or-

“You get a fur coat and a diamond, I get your stiletto’s on my nuts”

The whole gang rocks hard on this one and it’s hard not to laugh at the lyrical brilliance on display. Sure, getting heavily pissed on by another person might not agree with everyone, but if we’ve learned anything from the singer of Brass Against, it’s that someone somewhere definitely is.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HewOSY1XLLQ

Not to be accused of being technically illiterate, a few years back Steel Panther sang songs about MySpace and playing Angry Birds. Now they’re pumping out an entire tune dedicated in it’s entirety to social media catfishing with ‘On Your Instagram'. It’s a ballad for the ages. Michael Starr starts by singing “I fell in love with an angel” and I already know he’s going to cut the legs out from under someone. Much like when he sang “I would give you the stars in the sky” before letting her know that his cock was ‘Community Property’, this time around Starr compliments the pants off a presumably young woman before asking her “Why can’t you look like you do, on your Instagram…?” Poetry.

‘Put My Money Where Your Mouth Is’ falls a bit flat for me and has all the trimmings of a filler song. Sure, the wordplay is typical of a SP innuendo loaded song and Satchel’s solo’s are top notch but I can’t see this making their setlist anytime soon.

‘1987' on the other hand is an absolute gem. ‘1987’ is a love letter to what many consider a golden age of heavy metal, and is hands down my favourite song on this album. A mid-tempo guitar-driven ode to a time when Colombian nose candy was new, leather and denim were the standard fare, Van Halen were between singers, Ozzy Osbourne was biting heads off bats, Guns ’N’ Roses were the biggest band on the planet, we’d punched a hole in the ozone layer on the back of the amount of hairspray that was used and “cancel culture” didn’t exist. Satchel absolutely shines on this and was most excited about it when we spoke with him on their recent tour of Australia;

“1987! It was it was just a giant year for metal. It was just an interesting time to be a metalhead and I lived through it. It was a great time and for people who have lived through 1987 they're gonna love the song. And for people that didn't, they're still gonna love it because it'll give them a feeling of what that year must have been like.”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vM6xASUJbhI

‘Teleporter’ is a guitar masterclass. Riff heavy and sped up nicely. The song itself is about being in a horrible spot and wishing that someone would teleport you out. Like kacking your dacks on a blind date, having your special area shown on a jumbo-tron, or being caught in a compromising position with the family pet. The lyrics are mint but get trodden on under the speed of the song. Drummer Stix Zadinia’s gives his kit hell though. He throws a few sweet fills in for shits and giggles, including a bit of double-kick flair mid song.

For their next tune, the fellas enlist Frank's son Dweezil Zappa on guitar for ‘Is My Dick Enough’. It’s a bluesy number that has an angry stripper vibe, all while being sung from the point of view of a bloke that is sporting, what looks like, a button mushroom on a beanbag. ‘Magical Vagina’ isn’t my favourite song from this mob. There’s zero subtlety throughout this song and it’s just a bit off. The opening line of “Your pussy, it casts a hex” sets the standard for the next 4 or so minutes. I’m certain my fuckwit mate will sing “Your vagina, Your vagina, I’m in love with your vagina” just to piss me off. The truth is there’s nothing clever here. This goes in the bin alongside ‘Gods Of Pussy’ from their previous album Heavy Metal Rules.

‘All That and More’ is the antithesis of ‘Is My Dick Enough’. Where one song was about a bloke questioning the effectiveness of his man bits, this one has him bragging that his (picture Paul Rudd looking in the mirror and say…) DEEYUCK is the greatest of all time. According to Starr “It’s the capital D in the alphabet. It’s the Elvis of Heavy Metal”. Not their best song though. Probs won’t play this too much in the future either. This album is in need of some much needed swagger and 'One Pump Chump' has miles of it. A tragic tale of a bloke who can’t get past being a premature ejaculator. It’s a thin premise but some of the lyrics are great.

“One pump I emptied my balls. One pump and it’s Viagra Falls." For those looking for a return to slower songs like ‘Girl From Oklahoma’ and ‘Stripper Girl’ will find it in new power ballad ‘Pornstar’. It’s hardly as romantic as the former though. I’m pretty sure it reads from the point of view of an abusive a-hole locking a pretty girl up in a closet.

There’s been a few songs written through the ages about old rockers looking back on a life of regret, while trying to see out the rest of their days on the ones of their arse. ‘Ain’t Dead Yet’ is another one of those songs, only this one is by Steel Panther, so somewhere in there they managed to mention their jizz. The album closes out with a cautionary tale of living the life of infidelity. ‘Sleeping On The Rollaway” has a bit of pomp to it as Starr belts out a tune about flirting with a trans girl on OnlyFans and getting cat sized crabs from a hooker on a business trip.

I’ll always consider Steel Panther to be one of the most entertaining live acts on the planet. A tongue-in-cheek, R-rated experience that’s not necessarily for everyone (as witnessed by the number of age-restricted warnings on their YouTube videos). Their performances are filled with killer tunes and hilarious banter. Individually they are incredible musicians who also deliver an inch perfect comedic performance. At their core, Steel Panther are a filthy good time and I think any new music they produce needs to add to that.

Overall this album is a mixed bag. Some of the tunes I’ll play forever and others I probably won’t go near again. I wouldn’t in a million years want SP to go down a serious route, but their best tune on this record funnily enough is the one with with the most heart, '1987'. At the end of the day, Steel Panther kick a massive amount of arse and their love of heavy metal resonates through this whole album. That said, I don’t ever need to hear anyone screaming out “Your Vagina” over and over again.