Lower it down to a clutch of hard rock proto punkers and a long arty one, heighted it up to the avatar of 1970s rock and roll righteousness and a side trip to a beatnik colony. Claim for it greatness or claim for it 22 minutes and a doodle. It is up to you.
BUT
Tip your hat to a full on original, Mike Hudson, and a team of Cleveland ex-pats in the steam of Hollywood channeling the ghosts of 1978 and changing em, letting them grow, embracing em, playing the fuck out them and fif you don’t agree with me, if you don’t like the arty one and it derails the album for you, admire what has been achieved: a rock and roll that would have stood up against the best of 1978.
This is what I wrote in my initial review (here): “Everything about Hollywood High is hard knock, beatnik, in your face word reaming modern but undated personal statement heart of punk. It sounds like nothing else out there, neither of the time nor apart from it, it is a major rocker’s statement about redemption but Hudson is too hard headed to just say it: it weaves horror to extentuate the joy, it juxtaposes the terror of life so you can embrace the dream of true love.”
Listening to it now, it is darker than I thought it was, it is about the requitedness of love but also it seems buried in time and a barely controlled anger, ready to flip you or the rest of the world. “Something’s not right…” is a carrion call, a sort of dread continuum to the Pogues early spirit:a s though your each back and back and find nothing is where you placed it.
