Sheffield’s Pink Grease are dirty. And this is not your off-brown ‘n’ black grime, these are pinks and yellows and flickering red neons. Based on ‘The Pink G.R.EASE’ they’re “gonna make you sweat” too. Promises promises. This is gutter-glammer rock ‘n’ roll at its gaudiest. And there are more promises too, like they’re flaunting their wares candidly in a wide-open window display as the light falls and night draws in. “Pump it up boys” comes the call in ‘Party Live’, “pump it up girls” before a barrage of explicitness, “I want to be your sexy boy, babeeee…” says ‘High Strung Chironi’ and “I would fucking die for you, I want to die fucking you” is the lustful commitment spewing forth from ‘The Nasty Show’. Shame the charm’s worn off by then really.
It starts out so well, they know they’re dirty, and they know you know and think they’ve got you too, which right then they have. ‘Remember Forever’ has one of those immense throbbing Ramones drum lines that synchronise with your heartbeat and play chicken with your pulse, piled high with passionate testifying, wild whooping and some giddy glam, ‘Fever’ is hypnotic sleaze rock and ‘Peaches’ is a soulful 70s hormone stomp. But the problem with familiarity and superficiality is that they cancel each other out and leave you wondering why on earth you you’re stood there with your heart inexplicably hanging out of your mouth. There are thrills aplenty, they’re Rocket From The Crypt after an unwelcome and prolonged bout of sexual abstinence and desperation, but they don’t get your number. If they wanted it at all.