Latest Vegas music releases embrace death, debauchery, blowup dolls

Hair metal, death metal and blowup dolls: Welcome to the latest roundup of Vegas music releases:

STEEL PANTHER, "Balls Out" (steelpantherrocks.com): Lots of things get swallowed on "Balls Out," namely, these dudes' pride.

"Last night I got so high, I think I had sex with the cable guy," frontman Michael Starr confesses on "I Like Drugs," before later belting out the tune like David Lee Roth with his nipples in Vise-Grips.

On their second disc, Steel Panther continues to deflower subtlety -- sample song title: "It Won't Suck Itself" -- with their spandex-tight sendup of hair metal hedonism powered by endless double entendres, lots of tongue-wagging guitar solos and libidos as monstrous as their bangs. It wouldn't be nearly as funny if their playing was also a joke. It's not: Buckcherry haven't penned a rager as kick ass as "Supersonic Sex Machine" since, well, they've been Buckcherry.

BLOODCOCKS UK, "Bloodcocks UK" (bloodcocksuk.com): There once was a man from Nantucket, and that guy has nothing on the Bloodcocks when it comes to dirty limericks spat out in a tantrum of finger-snappin' filth. The Bloodcocks (who consist of Double Down owner P. Moss on vocals and guitar, bassist Rob Ruckus of the Vermin and others, and drummer Louie Williams) offer waterboard hooky, streamlined '70s-style punk, the louche sexual waywardness of Henry Miller's "Tropic of Cancer" and the occasional blowup doll in a deep pool of bodily fluids.

What results is a clutch of tunes as catchy as the various social diseases that most assuredly poison the blood of the questionable characters who inhabit these jams.

MOLOTOV SOLUTION, "Insurrection" (facebook.com/molotovsolutionofficial): Seeing as how these deathcore agitators have long bloodied their knuckles on the powers that be, their new disc feels especially of the moment: These dudes were speaking out for Occupy Wall Street-type actions years ago, so perhaps the times have caught up with this bunch.

Molotov Solution's latest disc, the aptly titled "Insurrection," encapsulates the revolutionary furor that's engulfed certain parts of the globe in 2011 like a raging wildfire, leaving acres of scorched earth in its wake.

The band's sound has tightened into a clenched fist of righteous anger, with guttural invocations and seismic breakdowns leavened with melodic guitar flourishes on songs such as "The Final Hour," "The Blood of Tyrants" and "Cruor Viaticus."

These are heavy times; this is heavier.

Contact reporter Jason Bracelin at jbracelin@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0476.