Album Review - Stephen Pearcy - Social Intercourse

Stephen Pearcy is releasing his first real solo album on his own label Top Fuel Records. Pearcy is best known as the lead singer in Ratt, but he also fronted Arcade along with Cinderella's Fred Coury and the band Vicious Delite. Reviews of both bands are coming soon.

Compared to the music in Ratt "Social Intercourse" deviates a bit. The riff-based guitar Rock in Ratt is replaced by a more chord based Rock 'N' Roll style with incorporation of more modern elements. However, you can still hear elements of the Ratt 'N' Roll just with a more updated sound. The album contains 11 songs, which are all hard hitters leaving no room for ballads.

Lyrically Stephen Pearcy is making references to Ratt songs. I don't know if this is on purpose, but the opening song includes the line "Nobody Rides For Free" and the bridge on Freak includes the line "same old Round and Round" referring to Ratt's biggest hit and one of their finest moments Round and Round.

Album highlights include the 2 AC/DC rockers Can't Never Get Enough and the party tune Ya Gotta Love That. Both songs are simple 3-4 power chord rockers with a crispy guitar sound.

The single Freak is a real earhanger. On this song Stephen is singing more varied. He sings deep in the beginning of each verse. The bridge is great with Pearcy harmonizing with the guitars. The guitar sound is often strident, which supports Stephen Pearcy's distinctive voice perfectly.

The album seems to fade out a little towards the ending with Pearcy being a little more experimental. There is use of scratch sounds on Ya Talkin' to Me and some experimental sound collages on Five Fingers. Some of the last songs are not so inspired as the previous. It sounds like Stephen has been trying to re-create the otherwise great Live To Die on Five Fingers.

I have always been a Ratt fan. Either you love Stephen Pearcy's voice or you hate it. There seems to been no middle way. When you put on an album that has Pearcy on vocals you can tell from the first vocal line that it is Pearcy. I like his voice because it is so characteristically.

One song describes this album very well: Ya Gotta Love That.

Written by Michael
Wednesday, March 19, 2003
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Michael: 7/10

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