By Monk
St Valentine are one of those bands who epitomize the late ’80s attitude of the Sunset Strip. A quick peck on the cheek at the front of the stage as the lead singer professes his undying love for you. An equally quick Frenchie and grope of your arse in the backstage toilets, followed by a faster than lightning dose of “how’s your father” in the back alley before disappearing onto the tour bus and into the nightfall, never to be seen again. Well, only to re-emerge 30 years later to remind us of that promise they left hanging in the air all those decades ago…
Someone had definitely been ploughing the vaults underneath Hollywood Boulevard of late, as this is the latest is a series of “long-lost” albums to have been unearthed, Indiana-style, and flung unceremoniously back into the limelight and stacked back on the shelves of the record store at the Museum Of Rock ‘n’ Roll Coulda Shoulda Mighta Beens. And like many of the submissions to this particular hall of inglorious infamy, ‘St Valentine’ does have many qualities to warrant its resurrection and reclamation in this retro-obsessed modern era.
St Valentine certainly had all the ingredients in place: they had Slaughter bassist Dana Strum pulling the strings (sic) behind the production desk (and in the co-writing stakes) and the likes of Jeff Scott Soto and Mark Slaughter himself laying down backing vocals and the big time record companies ringing their ‘phone off the hook… only for the music biz to suddenly turn on its head and hairspray and mascara to be replaced by unwashed dreadlocks and ripped jumpers.
On the evidence of this recently rediscovered set of recordings, St Valentine definitely were on to something. They certainly possessed all the right ingredients: attitude and ballsiness, as exemplified by the trio of (admittedly badly recorded) live tracks appended here, coupled with huge harmonies, massive melodies, hummable hooks, memorable choruses, searing guitar riffs and a series of sensational, steak-searing vocal performances from Scott Thomas Richards. Despite the squeaky clean image, SV definitely ploughed the dirtier, grittier end of the LA hair metal scene, with a sound that will appeal, to this day, to fans of Pretty Boy Floyd, Ratt, Skid Row, Slaughter and White Lion.
Definitely a hidden gem worth being unearthed.
- ‘St Valentine‘ is out now.
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