Femme Fatale - Femme Fatale (1988)

Femme Fatale enjoyed a short-lived moment in the spotlight with this self-titled album from 1988 being both their debut and swansong. Moving from their native New Mexico to LA the band secured a deal with a subsidiary of MCA which should have given them a solid foundation to launch their career . . . and indeed it did, albeit fleetingly. Femme Fatale were fronted by Lorraine Lewis around whom the whole attention on the group was focussed at the time who came across as something of an in-season Lita Ford, throwing herself around the stage whilst scantily clad with a somewhat faceless ‘backing band’ plodding away with mediocre 80’s commercial metal material in the background: not a recipe for a prolonged career!

Waiting for the Big One (double entendre methinks) opens the album and received huge airplay on MTV’s rock programs at the time as it was also the debut single and featured Ms Lewis in suitably scant attire. It’s a catchy mid-tempo rock track with Lewis treading the Lee Aaron approach to female rock vocals with it all getting a bit shouty on the higher notes. Nothing too outstanding here unfortunately but it fitted well with the scene at the time but wasn’t of standout proportions musically.

Another single from the album is up next which also received mass airplay (see the video below) and opens with chintzy 80s keyboards but develops into a much improved commercial hard rock track than its predecessor with a strong melodic vocal and hook line and is a bit less one dimensional than Waiting for the Big One.

My Baby’s Gun has has all the ingredients of a cheesy 80s track: “my baby rocks me all day, my baby’s gun is what I need”. The lyrics are appalling and of a high school level of banality and innuendo accompanied by a thumping, over-produced drum track and uninspired guitar work including the trading solos of D’Angelo and Rawd and Lewis seems to struggle to get anything approaching a reasonable melody out of the piece. Hopefully things can only get better . . .

Back In Your Arms Again is up next and is more in a power pop/rock style than the previous tracks which is an improvement, and I never thought I’d be in a position to say that! It does definitely have more of a ’song’ feeling to it which is no bad thing and Lorraine Lewis manages to crow her way through it with a degree of melody lacking elsewhere but Terri Nunn she ain’t!

Moving swiftly on, Rebel has an acoustic guitar and is a very melodic track . . . no really! Rebel isn’t bad, Lewis sings reasonably well as she’s not fighting to project herself over crashing chords and thumping production which removes the ability for the other tracks to even approach melodic subtlety. The track even avoids the common pitfall of predictability of having a ‘heavy’ chorus and whilst a distorted guitar does encroach towards the latter half of the track it is understated.

Fortune and Fame takes the mood back to up-tempo commercial metal territory and is instantly forgettable and is followed by another single from the album; Touch and Go. Lyrically, we’re back in the banality of ‘hey baby’, ‘do it to me all night long’ etc and cheesy chorus hook. Surely there’s going to be an outstanding track somewhere?

Next-up is IF which is a slow, plodding rock track which is followed by Heat the Fire and Cradle’s Rockin’ which closes the album. As you will be aware, a cardinal sin in my opinion is to have the word ‘Rock’ or any permutation thereof in a track’s title . . . or lyrics really so Cradles Rockin’ is off to a bad start from the outset. My cynicism is borne out by the fact that it’s woeful in every respect.

As you may have gathered from the above, I have a dim view of Femme Fatale as they’re just one cliché after another and should have spent far less time focusing on Lorraine Lewis’ a** and more time penning some decent tunes in order to claw their way out of the pit of 80s mediocrity in which they wallowed. As an aside I did spend the day with Lorraine Lewis back in the day and she was really unassuming and pleasant company but that doesn’t go anyway to forgiving the total waste of vinyl that was Femme Fatale: I rest my case!

• Lorraine Lewis – Vocals
• Bill D’Angelo – Guitar
• Mazzi Rawd – Guitar
• Rick Rael – Bass
• Bobby Murray – Drums