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Musical trends may come and go, but the Hangmen keep moving forward heedlessly with the headlong momentum of a runaway train. The quartet's new album on Acetate Records, East of Western (to be released in April 2012), smashes together lead singer Bryan Small's lurid love songs with unsparing, unsentimental blasts that shine a baleful and penetrating light into the dark and seedy corners of modernday Los Angeles. The Hangmen have always been a unique group that can't be easily pigeonholed, and East of Western captures all of their different sides. When they first got together in L.A. in 1987, the Hangmen were fiery and hard rocking enough to play with metal bands, but they also had a stubbornly rootsy and punk rock attitude that made them fit in just as easily with such legendary underground icons as the Gun Club and Tex & the Horseheads. Their trademark dual-guitar attack combines the classic-rock drive of the Rolling Stones and AC/DC with the hard-charging swagger of Johnny Thunders' Heartbreakers and the sinister allure of the Cramps. But what really makes the Hangmen stand out is Small's gift for writing anthemic choruses with huge hooks, which he delivers with his distinctly feral and instantly recognizable snarl. On East of Western, he sneers his way through boldly hard-rocking romantic pleas ("I'm Your Man"), Western-tinged barn-burners ("Railroad Man") and insomniac tales of junkie self-destruction and ultimate redemption ("Drink Smoke"). With its big, fat and leering monster riff, "Big Red Rooster" is a fitting homage to the late Lux Interior of the Cramps, who Small lovingly describes as a "teenage bastard of the chosen one." Drummer Dino Guerrero (who has played with Mike Ness, as well as supergroup Charley Horse with members of Nashville Pussy and Throw Rag) and longtime Hangmen bassist Angelique Congleton are joined by lead guitarist Ron Heathman (ex-Supersuckers).

Track Listing