Chrome Vanity is the high-octane solo project of veteran Los Angeles bassist and producer Matt Geinitz. A seasoned road warrior, Matt has toured the country providing the low-end thunder for national acts like Six Gun Sal and The Alibi, and currently holds it down for LA punk/metal outfit Sweet Corvette. What began as a personal passion project has rapidly transformed into a breakout success following the viral momentum of the lead single, “The Blackout Parade.” Dropping on March 27th, the 10-track debut album Switchblade Serenade delivers a relentless, “all-killer-no-filler” sonic assault that runs on Matt’s favorite genre of music – pure Swedish sleaze – and the gritty, high-speed adrenaline of Street metal.
Chrome Vanity arrive with a striking, neon-drenched statement of intent on ‘Switchblade Serenade’, an album that feels like it was forged in equal parts glam grit and in your face 80’s Metallic-edged Hard Rock. From the opening riff of the title track, you know what you’re going to get: big hooks, sharper-than-glass riffs, and a sleazy, no frills edge that feels like it belongs on a midnight highway under flickering streetlights. It’s an opener that ticks all of teh boxes if you’re looking for a Harder Edged sleazier Skid Row. It’s a great sound and the production is nice and crisp.
The momentum barely lets up as ‘Dead by Morning’ kicks in, a swaggering slice of Hard Rock decadence that pairs sleazy imagery with arena-sized choruses. There’s a clear nod to classic Sunset Strip aesthetics here, but Chrome Vanity avoid pure nostalgia by injecting a modern, slightly more Metallic bite into the production. The result is a track that feels both familiar and dangerous, lifted by a huge chorus. The guitars and vocals sound great too.
Mid-album, ‘Gutter Royalty’ really picks up the pace. It’s darker, sleazier and has another ripper of a chorus. The guitars do the heavy lifting with a corrosive edge while the vocals drift between grit and melody. It’s one of those tracks that reveals more with each listen, I love it.
‘Blackout Parade’ keeps the high standards up, and you start thinking that this could be up there with the best of Swedish Sleaze, though of course it hails from Los Angeles! It’s a nice thought that there’s a fight back on the way! Matt certainly has an uncanny knack of hitting a huge hook, and the deeper I get in the more impressed I am. It’s all jagged riffs and soaring hooks, built like a love letter written in broken glass.
‘Electric Venom’ broods a little more, there’s a theatrical quality here too that elevates the sound beyond straightforward hard rock—even the spoken word part works beautifully. There’s drama, danger, and melody all locked in combat. It’s easy to imagine absolutely any song here becoming a live staple, fists in the air and sweat dripping from the ceiling. It’s the sound of excess.
‘Daddy’s Little Tragedy’ is more vintage Lizzy Borden meets Endeverafter two great bands of different eras who rode the same highways under the dead of night. But there’s more! ‘Midnight Predators’ adds more of that wonderfully Metallic thrust and melody, it’s fast, loud, and unapologetically messy in all the right ways. It would get a corpse ‘s foot tapping.
And the closing stretch is as gloriously sleazy as it opened. First ‘Whiskey & Cyanide’ might even be my favourite here, it soars and rides a hook so big it could land a school of whales. It’s everything that keeps me coming back to this genre and as big and bold as anything Scandinavia has produced in the last ten years.
There’s less than a second’s respite before ‘Straightjacket Symphony’ speeds in a tears it up, it’s another breakneck love letter to Sleazy Hard Rock . The final word though goes to ‘Bastards of the Boulevard’ and anthem for all of us 80’s Rockers. It’s glorious.
With Chrome Vanity Matthew has created a classic on Switchblade Serenade, it’s a record that thrives on contrast: beauty and brutality, melody and menace, polish and sleazy abandon. It’s a debut that you don’t often get: a record that is shot through with a quality of songwriting you don’t often hear. I got the same kind of feeling listening to this as I did the first Crashdiet, Endeverafter’s ‘Kiss of Kill’, Bullet and Octane’s ‘In the Mouth of the Young’ and Black Tide’s debut. This is seriously good. Chrome Vanity might not just be another name in the Sleaze Rock scene, but could become one of its defining voices.
9/10