The Struts – Strange Days review: A metal-by-numbers homage to big-hair rock

A glam metal album? In 2020? You could be forgiven for thinking you’d woken up in the mid-Eighties listening to The Struts’s latest, a metal-by-numbers homage to big-hair rock.

Full-on guitar/drum assault? Check — Wild Child. Motorbike revving? Check — All Dressed Up (With Nowhere To Go). KISS cover? Check — Do You Love Me?

There’s even a guest appearance from Def Leppard, introduced with a cringeworthy “phone call”: “I have this big fat chorus that I need your big old pipes for, baby,” lead singer Luke Spiller appeals to Joe Elliott.

But if you take it with a huge pinch of salt there’s fun to be had. No doubt the LA studio sessions were a riot. The 10 songs were recorded in 10 days during lockdown. The title track, with Robbie Williams, is surely a frontrunner for the soundtrack to 2020, the go-to theme for any TV round-up reel of this inglorious year.