XX drag glam metal into the dark on debut album ‘Kill This…’

‘Kill This…’ doesn’t sound particularly interested in nostalgia. The debut album from Chicago hard rock outfit XX may carry traces of frontman Nasti XX’s history with Diamond Rexx, but this six-track release is forged in transformation rather than revival. Working with guitarist, writer and producer Dee J Nelson, Nasti takes the swagger and excess associated with glam metal and pushes it through a darker mix of industrial rock, punk and modern hard-rock production.

But instead of simply updating an older sound, ‘Kill This…’ feels designed to challenge it. Nasti has spoken openly about being pushed vocally into places he wouldn’t necessarily have explored alone, and that willingness to leave familiar territory behind becomes one of the record’s defining traits.

The title-track immediately establishes that harder edge, while songs such as ‘Get A Life’, ‘S.O.S.’ and ‘Stand Up’ keep the album moving with a direct, confrontational energy. There’s very little wasted space across the six tracks, and that compactness works in their favour.

But one of the more surprising moments comes with ‘Hungry Like The Wolf’. Reworking the Duran Duran classic could easily have become a novelty exercise, but XX approach it with enough weight to make the song fit naturally within the darker world of the album.

While ‘Throw Me Away’ closes the record on a title that feels particularly fitting for an album so concerned with discarding old expectations.

Nasti’s own past is clearly part of the DNA, but it’s not treated as something sacred. Throughout, XX use it as raw material, pulling apart glam-metal conventions and rebuilding them through industrial textures, punk aggression and a heavier modern attack.

For a debut, the album is impressively clear about what it wants to be. ‘Kill This…’ isn’t Nasti XX merely trying to relive an earlier chapter. It’s the sound of him setting fire to it and seeing what survives.