Silver Ginger 5's frontman, Ginger himself, helmed this short-lived band at a time when his principal group,
the Wildhearts, were in limbo. It's a confused and undistinguished outing, mixing hard rock, glam rock, punk, pop, and profanity without ever making a strong statement of direction. The lack of focus wouldn't matter so much if the material was stronger, and the thrashing "Too Many Hippies (In the Garden of Love)" doesn't live up to the wit of its title, coming off as an early 21st century hard rock bastardization of
T. Rex. The 2005 two-CD expanded edition adds quite a bit of material, including two bonus tracks from the Japanese version of the album (one of them an ill-advised cover of
the Bee Gees' "To Love Somebody"); material from two live shows in 2001 (one of them described here as "Live (Acoustic)," although it's not wholly acoustic), and three demos. Interestingly, the live sets only contain versions of a few of the songs from Black Leather Mojo, surrounding them with renditions of
Wildhearts songs and a few covers. Those covers include
Cheap Trick's "He's a Whore" and, from the "acoustic"-billed portion, a woefully unentertaining medley featuring tunes from
Adam Ant and
Stevie Wonder. ~ Richie Unterberger