If you’ve followed my reviews over the years you’ll know this isn’t a casual fling. My relationship with Mike Trash’s music has been long, loud and gloriously sleazy fun. From the first time I locked into the sleazy stab of The Erotics’ early releases to the darker, more cinematic horror-tinged turns of their later catalogue, there’s been a through-line: conviction. Just What the Devil Ordered is an album that you can feel the dirt under its fingernails, and it kicks the door clean off its hinges and plants its boots on the table, spilling a few bottles as it does. This is The Erotics fully realised, full of fire, and absolutely certain of their own vaulted mythology. As I always say when a new record hits – these guys should be HUGE!
From the opening bars of the subtly titled ‘Necro City’ you know you’re in familiar, dangerous territory. That unmistakable Trash guitar tone is simply gutter-glam snarl: part late-night noir, part dark graveyard delight. It’s a song on a record that sounds like it was recorded live right as you listen. Subtlety is clearly for suckers! There’s chaos in the guitar grind, but a shimmer too and it is all just so unapologetically loud! The rhythm section stalks, smashes and hits hard. There’s a real tightness here that only comes from years of shared stages and shared scars. Where earlier albums flirted with excess for the thrill of it, this one seems to channel that excess with precision. It’s wonderfully controlled yet gloriously reckless at heart.
What strikes hardest is the confidence of tracks like ‘Horns Hold My Halo’. This isn’t a band chasing relevance or retro cool; this is a band defining its own lane and daring anyone else to keep up. The hooks hit with more impact, the grooves just swing harder, and the arrangements show a maturity that sharpens everything. There’s a real cool 80’s groove that hints at depth and reverence behind the decadence, man so far Just What the Devil Ordered is so cool.
‘Nightmares of Lullabies’ has a slice of Sex Pistols attitude in the refrain. Trash just understands the cost of indulgence and sings about it without ever surrendering the thrill of it all. That balance has always been his secret weapon. I’ve said in earlier reviews that Trash writes sin like poetry; here he writes it like barroom scripture.
Lyrically, Trash remains the high priest of temptation and I love ‘Just Another Thing’ that has that swagger of early Dogs D’Amour and trashy New York Punk sound. It’s one of my absolute standouts (well one of the 8!). ‘Trapped in Nowhere’ that follows hot on the stacked heels is simply unstoppable sleazy fun and boasts the great line “The only way out of this Earth is in a rocket or a shiny hearse”…
‘Sweet Beautiful Lies’ crawls in across the beer stained floor and swaggers and stumbles drunkenly to the bar. The production deserves credit for refusing to sand off the grit. There’s warmth in the mix, but it’s the kind that comes from analogue glow rather than digital polish. Guitars breathe, drums crack, basslines prowl. Nothing feels overcrowded, nothing feels remotely safe, it all just sounds wonderfully raw. It sounds like a band in a room, right next to you, sweat dripping, ears burning, just like it should be.
‘I See Enemies’ is full tilt punk attitude and a sure fire fast fix live. And closer ’11 Dead Roses’ leads us out with the strummed acoustic antithesis of all that’s come before. It’s those textures that make The Erotics so unique and long may it continue.
I’ve championed Mike Trash for years because he’s never taken the obvious route. While trends rose and collapsed around him, he doubled down on storytelling, swagger and substance. This album reinforces that stubborn artistic streak. But Just What the Devil Ordered isn’t a reinvention and it isn’t a nostalgia trip. It’s more of the same quality you would expect from a band that refuses to grow up or grow old.
For those of us who’ve been riding shotgun with Mike Trash’s musical misadventures for years, it’s confirmation that the fire hasn’t dimmed — it’s burning cleaner, hotter and brighter than ever. The album is out now on Cacophone Records.
9/10
Buy it here: BANDCAMP | YOUTUBE | SPOTIFY
