Rock & roll rebels have been declaring rock & roll dead for a long time -- sang a song about it in 1995, about two years after said something similar on a B-side -- so, in a sense, calling their full-length 2016 debut is merely another sign that the L.A. quartet pride themselves on being traditionalists whose intent is keeping the fire burning. carries some modern production flare -- all the fuzz guitars are compressed into thin gruel, the rhythms follow a tight sequence, the vocals of are tastefully pushed into the red -- but the aesthetic is vintage Sunset Strip sleaze channeled through the blues bluster of and . Because , a self-styled rock & roll badass, fronts the group, can also recall or, perhaps more accurately, the canny commercialism of , who blended 's retro-rock with 's retro-soul. Apart from the bare-bones closer "Shelter," don't even flirt with soul, but their eager hooks and bad girl pastiche are certainly designed to please crowds in a fashion similar to 's and, as a whole, satisfies precisely because it is so shameless in how it strives to embody everything junky in rock & roll. Despite 's desire for authenticity, what's good about the band is how they never feel real: they're a studio band backing a self-styled star, a group creating aspirational rock that delivers cheap thrills because their ambition is so low and their execution so high. This isn't a garage band, this is a group of pros writing songs about raising hell, drinking whiskey, living after midnight, seeking shelter and guns -- cliches one and all, but it works because it's transparent trash so desperate to be dirty, it'll often get silly. Advertent or not, that silliness gives some lightness, helping it to become the riotous good time it so desperately wants to be. ~ Stephen Thomas Erlewine