Deadly Weapon, Deadly Weapon

A glance at the liner notes of Deadly Weapon’s self-titled disc reveals much about the band’s aesthetic, as they feature emphatic thanks of GOD and their favorite pizza, hot dog, and gyro joints, and use up more valuable real estate to thank OUR TROOPS, further proclaiming that WITHOUT YOU, AMERICA DOES NOT EXIST and that DESPITE THE MEDIA’S ONE-SIDED REPORTING (AND LACK OF), WE AMERICANS ARE EXTREMELY PROUD OF EVERY ONE OF YOU and that the band’s hair is done by Tracy Torma and (of course) Neil, Jason, and Barbara in Chicago. Opposite, a picture of the aforementioned hairdos confronts the viewer. I would swear that those were wigs, but unfortunately, I can have no such confidence in the band’s sense of self.

That pretty much sums up Deadly Weapon: big, dumb, loud, irritating, out of touch, and riddled with clichés, unintentional contradictions, and irony. Apparently viewing themselves as some kind of rock-and-roll messiahs, come to deliver “real rock and roll” to a world blighted by “anger music” and bands that “look like my next-door neighbor,” the band promises “escapism, a time to forget their problems and not have them thrown back in their face” (and what of the support-the-troops business?) and compares themselves to “an out-of-control rollercoaster.” How anyone could seriously claim that another tired old AC/DC/Appetite-era-Guns-n-Roses/Mötley Crüe/Poison/Stryper/etc. clone band resembles anything remotely “out-of-control” is beyond me, but unintentionally, the band seems to have hit the mark with the rest of the metaphor, since lacking speed, power, thrills, chills, ideas, value, or competence, Deadly Weapon resembles nothing so much as an low-rent rollercoaster, mindlessly following the same worn-out track over and over in a self-defeating and soporific journey to nowhere.