Tyla’s Dogs D’Amour

In Vino Veritas

He’s not quite out of the Doghouse yet. The fact that ye olde bulletrproof poet Tyla saw fit to slap his name in front of the band name on this record suggests there are probably warring factions of former Dogs out there, à la Ratt, Queensrÿche, or, you know, the Electric Prunes. Tyla’s been trying to regain Dogs D’Amour’s bedraggled 80s glory days for decades, dragging the band’s noble name through dark alleyways littered with halfassed solo acoustic albums, remakes of remakes, and crashlanding one-off reunions.

Some of them worked, some didn’t, none of them brought us back to the Dogs’ Dynamite Jet Saloon album in any meaningful way.

Tyla’s latest tactic is to just form a brand-new band and write some brand-new songs, and if you squint a little, it does indeed sound like your besotted heroes stumbling through their elegantly wasted lost years, wine glasses crunching underfoot, guitars billowing like hazy bonfires. Sorta. Tyla’s sorethroat gargle is still a thing of liver-decimating wonder, and while he jams a little too much overzealous bullshit into every song (Monroe-esque saxes are one thing, but Deep Purple organs?), the stand-out tracks here – fully blazing opener 111, the slinky Movie Star and glampunking Bloodlines - definitely sleaze to please.

Sleazegrinder