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

Hair Today, Gone Tomorrow - Metal in the 1980s

In the dim and distant past, somewhere between punk and grunge, a strange phenomenon occurred: metal became mainstream, dominating the ‘pop’ charts on both sides of the Atlantic. However, this was not metal as had gone before – although some of the earlier bands tweaked their approach to ride the wave – but a new kind of metal with a new kind of image that saw the genre at the peak of its popularity. So, I hear you ask, what caused this and where did it all go wrong? Well, as a stalwart of the metal scene in the 1980s myself I’ll attempt to provide my perspective on what transpired during the 1980s when, for a fleeting and glorious moment in time, metal took centre stage . . .

Part 1 – The scene at the dawn of the 1980s

I think it fairly un-contentious to say that most scenes are born out of disaffection with the current scene, for whatever reason, and that, as Emile Durkheim once posited: “the solidarity of a in-group is a function of conflict with an out-group”. By this is meant that what bonds people together in a scene, in this case, is the perceived antagonism with another scene . . . we are united by our displeasure with other scenes. This was no more starkly evident during the latter half of the 1970s where our metallic forefathers, and their prog-rock cousins, had taken musicality to the extreme and in so doing had disenfranchised the emerging youth scene. It appeared that the rebellious need in youth was not to be satiated by a 25 minute Keith Emerson Hammond extravaganza or by Jimmy Page bowing his Telecaster for 30+ minutes . . . and I can see their point! The rock scene as it was in the 1970s had, whilst producing some outstanding music and groups, rather begun to implode and crawl up its own a** to the point where it didn’t connect in either subject-matter or musicality with a new generation of youth.

The result, as we all know, emerged in 1976 with the Punk movement in the UK with the Sex Pistols, the Damned and the Clash being at the forefront of a scene that was the embodiment of the disaffected new generation referred to above. In the States too a clutch of bands out of CBGB’s, among a few other notables, were formulating their response to disaffection too but from a personal perspective the UK scene had a real vitriol and almost hatred attached to it of all that had gone before that made it such a revolution culturally.

There were two prongs to the punk attack: image and music. For the former, as with any new movement rebelling against a previous scene, an opposite to what had gone previously was adopted . . . out went long hair and the remnants of hippy-dom clothing and in came crew cuts, skinheads and ripped clothing. Musically, out went virtuosity, ethereal/mythical lyrical subject matter and extended tracks and in came three chords, bad tuning, shouted vocals, politicised lyrics and 2 minute tracks.

Within two short years, the punk revolution was largely a spent force; it’s job done. However, as with any revolution, once the essence against which a group is rebelling is overthrown what is there left to rebel against? Punk had become mainstream popular culture musically but was no longer fresh and ‘dangerous’ but almost establishment! Record companies and many bands jumped on the bandwagon and homogenised the genre which rather saw it fade as quickly as it had arrived by the end of the 1970s.

But what of metal? Well, as a genre hard rock/metal has proven incredibly resilient and adaptable in the face of cultural change and this was also the case here. A lot of young metal musicians it transpired were also embracing of the energy and spirit of the punk movement and sought to combine the better elements of both that and the previous rock scene in the UK from which emerged the New Wave of British Heavy Metal at the close of the 1970s with bands like Iron Maiden, Tank, Motorhead and Saxon providing a new, grittier-edged style of metal based around tight riffs, high energy and no frills images. Almost like punk, the NWOBHM movement came in with a bang and rewrote the rock/metal scene rules but itself was short-lived.

Part II – Image is King

1980, time for another popular scene revolution? Simultaneously with the emergence of NWOBHM was the more mainstream rebellion against the punk ethos – following the tried and tested principles of any revolution of taking the opposites of the scene against which you are rebelling. Image suddenly became of paramount, and impeccable, importance with the emergence of the New Romantic scene: clothes, hairstyle and idyllic lifestyles became key to the new scene embodied by bands such as Duran Duran and Spandau Ballet.

But how was metal to respond to this further marginalisation? The NWOBHM was producing some strong bands musically but in terms of image it was still very much jeans and t-shirt and lyrically the sword and sorcery of the pre-punk scene hadn’t been totally forgotten either so it was a movement that whilst gaining some popularity was most likely to be a sideshow to popular music (which, let’s face it is no bad thing).

The 1980s as a decade is largely remembered as a decade of decadence, of style over substance and where aspirations were towards hedonism and wealth. Whilst many of us never achieved the ideal as it was also a decade of great economic instability with the monetarist policies of the UK leading to mass unemployment for the first half of the decade and the ‘trickle down’ ideology in the US proving no less favouring of the masses, culturally things were reflective of such ideals. Think shoulder pads and bouffant hair in Dallas/Dynasty, Duran Duran’s multi-million pound videos on tropical islands etc . . . Another prime motivator in this whole social shift, at least musically, was the launch of MTV – another triumph of image over substance, whereby suddenly bands had to make videos that would be played and played ad infinitum and stand-up as a visual spectacle on this new medium. Suddenly a video of four scruffy blokes sweating away miming to one of their tracks on a small club stage didn’t quite cut the MTV mustard!

Add all the above ingredients together and stir with a liberal dose of metal and what do you get? Well, in the US you got the Sunset Strip club and band scene emerging in LA! As a revolution within metal itself what emerged was a complete move away from the jeans and t-shirt approach favoured by the NWOBHM, to rebel against traditional metal you’d need to do two things: give a commercial edge to tracks, make them catchy, and make an aesthetically strong image – one that would be the metal equivalent of the ‘pretty boy’ approach taken by the New Romantics . . . but obviously starkly different from theirs too as the metal scene is rebelling against the mainstream too remember?

As we know, what emerged was something of a cross between Dallas and Alice Cooper: big hair, make-up and mini-dresses for the girls with big hair, make-up and spandex for the boys . . . and lots of it! A prime example of this emerging scene would be Motley Crue who embodied everything of the new movement in terms of appearance, music and ideology: the scene was about to explode!

Part III – Conquering the World

So the scene was set, MTV’s 1981 launch saw the channel viewed by a huge audience and had an insatiable thirst for music with a visual impact, the bands of the Strip had just that appeal along with a metal sensibility coupled with all the ideals that were embodiment of the decade at that point: a match made in Heaven! Suddenly, a mainstream medium had picked-up on metal and was feeding it to the World endlessly, 24-hours a day, 7 days a week as the decade grew with record companies, keen to exploit this new medium, signing bands at a rapid rate with Cinderella and Poison, along with Motley Crue, being some of the chief protagonists.

Interestingly, that is only half the story however. The full ‘glam’ scene made a huge impact worldwide but had somewhat fractured the metal scene. Those of us not predisposed to make-up and spandex would have been isolated if it weren’t for the other thread of the genre that largely spruced-up the image of NWOBHM, added a bit of commerciality to its songs, and also lit the blue touch paper and waited for lift-off!

Now largely lumped-in with ‘glam’ to a ‘Hair Metal’ genre by revisionist pop journalists, bands like Dokken, Keel, Quiet Riot, Def Leppard, Bon Jovi etc all gained great exposure and popularity during the 1980s but weren’t ‘glam’ and as such largely co-opted those disaffected by the whole ‘glam’ shtick and thus, in total, helping to create a huge metal scene. The new scene’s image conscious approach and commerciality of music also attracted fringe players from mainstream pop, making for a huge audience and huge market – one which the record companies were only too glad to flood with an endless stream of metal bands during the era: Ratt, LA Guns, Faster Pussycat, Skid Row, Europe, Whitesnake . . .

Actually, Whitesnake raises an interesting point: if all the new bands that were achieving phenomenal success in the mid-1980s were commercial glam and power rock bands and you were a hangover from the 1970s or early 1980s NWOBHM, what were you to do?

Part IV – Where’s your party invite?

Let’s rewind a little to pre-1983 (Motley Crue’s release of Shout at the Devil). So we have the NWOBHM bands, in the US there are a lot of AOR bands around . . . basically a lighter metal with harmony vocals and strong melody such as Styx, Journey, Kansas, Toto . . . and there are also some hangers-on from the 1970s era such as Rainbow, Whitesnake, Gillan and AC/DC, for example. Was this a change or die moment for existing and traditional metal acts? Well, no, not really . . . more fractures to the metal scene!

It’s fair to say that a reasonable portion of the metal scene wasn’t caught-up in the whole ‘glam’ thing at all . . glam had largely fractured the metal scene and attracted a new audience from both that scene and the more mainstream pop/new wave scenes and made it very big. However, whilst the power-rock bands were also treading a similar furrow, for bands that had existed before the boom, decisions had to be made.

In the words of Manowar (who I would rarely quote) the main decision, as I saw it, was to answer the following question: are you true metal or false metal? Those who answered the former are Group 1, queue-up over there with Motorhead and Iron Maiden, those who answered the latter are Group 2, collect your tin of Hard Rock Hairspray and skin-tight spandex pants and queue-up over there with Whitesnake and Saxon.

Whilst in my head at the time, and a bit now to be honest, Group 2 would have been led to their execution for bandwagon-jumping for commercial purposes and not staying true to their music or fans at that time, as the years have passed I’m willing to let bygones be bygones . . . to a point!

So, the outcome was that many traditional/NWOBHM bands glammed-up and got with the program whilst some stuck to their guns. Fortunately, such was the groundswell of the genre that those of ‘Group 2′ also found great popularity and considerable mainstream success and rode the wave that would, a few short years later, dash many of their glam counterparts, and turncoats, on the rocks.

In summary then, we had Glam, commercial power-rock and the trad/NWOBHM movements existing simultaneously and achieving great popularity and success by the late 1980s which, for someone who hit their teens in that time was an awesome spectacle and one which, I fear, will not be seen again . . . although I hope I’m proved wrong on that score. Good times then, metal was a global musical force, all conquering, but . . .

Part V – Walls come tumbling down

Whilst the going was good, murmurings of unrest had appeared in the ranks. The style over substance element that prevailed at the peak of the scene was as alienating to some within the metal genre as was prog to the pre-punk crowd some years earlier. Bands such as Diamond Head who had emerged in the NWOBHM but become also-rans during the boom period were viewed afresh by some of the new generation entering the metal scene who saw the androgyny and flash image of the current scene as one that had departed way too far from the actual principles of metal and from the music itself and sought to do something about it.

Once again, how do you rebel against something: you take a completely contrary stance right? So an underground movement began that stuck a finger up at the whole image and style of mainstream metal and harked back to the jeans and t-shirt approach of their forefathers but with a twist: the mainstream metal scene had descended into endless pained ballads and commercial ditties so the backlash must surely be play fast and hard with no commercial hooks or catchy choruses? Well, yes it was and bands such as Metallica pioneered such an approach which began to make inroads with what was to be termed thrash or speed metal and attracting all those disaffected with the rather syrupy manner mainstream metal was going with bands like Mr Big and their ilk with slushy, acoustic ballads achieving great chart success but being of little substance, or sincerity – formulaic chart-fodder for the masses.

Whilst Metallica and the growing thrash scene was beginning to attract more and more of an audience away from the mainstream glam scene, yet another scene was pissed at the commerciality and cashing-in approach taken by many of the huge bands of the time. Much as with the emergence of punk, a new scene was developing that really dropped completely all interest in image, as had the thrash scene to a point, but whereas Metallica, Anthrax and Slayer et al were pushing the boundaries of speed and playing to its limits, the bands playing the circuit around Seattle wanted to strip things back to basics with simple chord structures and slow, driving rhythms with lyrics about their disaffection from the mainstream and of how crap life really was for the average youth of the time, not buying-in to the false, albeit aspirational, ideals of the glam scene.

This two-pronged attack from the thrash scene and the emerging grunge scene, as it was coined, hit home at the close of the decade with a new generation of music fan who felt it was speaking to them. As with glam, some bands jumped ship with Pantera, for example, erring on the side of thrash but with many bands just losing their audience and folding seemingly overnight: the bubble had burst!

Part VI – The Aftermath

Just as with the assault on traditional metal some 10 years earlier, some of the originators of the scene toughed it out, such as Motley Crue, and all credit to them for that. Furthermore, bands such as Motorhead, AC/DC etc who had survived the 1980s battering of their brand of metal, emerged relatively unscathed by the whole experience with their credibility in tact whilst those who had jumped-ship, and those who had emerged on the back of Crue et al, such as Poison and Cinderella, fell by the wayside.

Whilst the 1980s was a great decade to be in the metal scene for numerous reasons, things did go too far, way too far. Metal has always had a sense of rebellion about it against the mainstream culture and this has served it well over the years as once a sub-genre becomes mainstream, a new scene emerges to challenge and overthrow it, as has been demonstrated here, which always keeps the scene fresh, exciting and challenging. One of the crucial lessons to be learnt from this tale too is that pretenders will always be found out – each scene has its originators for whom the new scene is borne out of a true desire and ideology and are to be commended and their careers always extend way beyond that of the scene they create. Conversely, on the back of such pioneers always comes a slew of copycat bands and record company protégées who fall by the wayside when the new scene, and market, collapses.

The ‘Hair Metal’ era as it is now termed encompassed several sub-scenes and I enjoyed some of them and, in typical rebellious fashion, rallied against others but with hindsight, one overriding fact remains: for one period in time, metal ruled the World and for that, whatever sub-scene you belonged to, we should view the 1980s as a halcyon time to be a metal fan.

Kiss - Creatures Of The Night (1982)

Incredibly this 1982 opus from US glam rockers Kiss was their 10th studio album and the last to feature guitarist Ace Frehley – albeit on the cover only as the guitar work was actually played by future Kiss stalwarts Vinnie Vincent and Bob Kulick, that latter appearing on the track Danger, along with Steve Farris who later went on to form Mr Mister! Whilst never quite succumbing to the whole glam, over-the-top shtick of Kiss this is a solid album of hard rocking tracks benefitting from an incredibly loud production from Michael James Jackson and a very ambient and powerful drum sound and overall is distinctly heavier than many of their preceding recordings.

The title track opens the album and is a real pounding mid-tempo rocker coming across as a mix of Ozzy-era Sabbath and Led Zep’s Immigrant song with, of course, a much updated production. Next up is a brief guitar intro before a thunderous play around the tom toms from Carr and we’re into a mid-tempo triplet beat for Saint and Sinner which is one of the standout tracks here.

Keep Me Comin’ is more in a traditional Kiss style and is a bit more at the clichéd end of the heavy rock spectrum both lyrically and musically – never something from which Kiss shied away however! Unfortunately, as readers will know, severe amounts of brownie points are lost for any track with ‘Rock n Roll’ in its title and so Rock And Roll Hell is not off to a winning start . . . and lyrically and musically again it’s pretty much run of the mill chugging metal of the cheesy kind.

Like a breath of fresh air Danger kicks-in with Bob Kulick on guitar duty and a change in style is immediately apparent as is the effort put into writing this track as it is evidently considerably more than the previous two efforts. We’re also treated to the odd bit of wailing guitar soloing here too – thankfully not by Vinnie Vincent so some melodic overtone exists. Danger is a great track and really puts the album back on track at a time you begin to think it is sinking into mediocrity.

Pump your fists in the air and prepare yourself for an anthem par excellence: I Love it Loud. Now, this is formula metal cheese but is a real classic Kiss track and catchy as Hell . . . very much in the same vein as Rock All Night some years later: although that was rather old hat by that time and had the word ‘Rock’ in the title! This is a real pounding anthem and certainly deserves to be played loud, very loud.

Another real standout track is up next with Creatures of the Night which is, in effect, a ballad but a rather moody and melancholy one at that. Built around a very simple picked guitar part the song builds and builds with Stanley turning in a fine vocal performance conveying the pain end emotion of the tale; emotion being a skill not normally associated with Kiss! The song really makes use of power and musical delicacy switching seamlessly between the thunderous chorus and the subtlety of the verses and the mid-section build and guitar solo are all very in-keeping and carry the mood perfectly.

You’d have to go some way to follow I Still Love You and unfortunately being Kiss, this is a point missed as the album provides the up-tempo Killer which is devoid of riff and musical ideas and doesn’t really belong on the album at all . . . oh yes, and Gene Simmons is on lead vocal too. The album then closes with War Machine which has a classic, menacing riff of which Tony Iommi would be proud and vocals again from Simmons. War Machine actually goes a good way to admonishing the memory of the preceding track as it’s one of the better tracks on the album and the riff is a classic.

Overall this is a good album from Kiss and marked something of a watershed in their career. The departure of Frehley, their diminishing popularity, makeup issues and Peter Criss’s departure etc etc were largely put to bed by Creatures of the Night as it was a solid return to form (in fact I prefer it to much of their earlier material) and paved the way for them to achieve greater success once more later in the 1980s with their follow-up releases Lick It Up and Animalize. You very much get the impression Kiss were making the statement here that, forget all the stuff that had gone before in the previous couple of years, we’re back and mean business . . . and they certainly were and did!

• Paul Stanley – Guitar/Vocals
• Vinnie Vincent – Guitar
• Bob Kulick – Guitar
• Steve Farris – Guitar
• Gene Simmons – Bass
• Eric Carr – Drums

Steel Panther - Feel the Steel (2009)

At last, the saviours of metal have arrived with tongue firmly planted in cheek and enough old-school 80s riffs to blow your hat off! Feel The Steel is the debut album from Steel Panther and is a barnstorming effort from start to finish featuring every musical hair metal cliche in the book and ‘Parental Advisory’ lyrics which, in parts, made me laugh out loud: I can’t recommend this highly enough. Musically the album is very strong as you would expect from a band featuring metal veterans Guitar Institute of Technology instructor and ex-Fight guitarist Russ Parrish and L.A. Guns vocalist Ralph Saenz, aka Satchel and Michael Starr.

In my opinion Steel Panther succeed where others failed – such as The Darkness (from whom Justin Hawkins appears on backing vocals for Party All Day) – largely on two counts: firstly, the lyrics (if a little banal) are funny and secondly, that the music is of a very high standard – the band haven’t compromised on the musicianship and songwriting and relegated it to second-place behind the humour/irony . . . something of which a few other bands should take note!

For the sake of Tipper Gore filing a lawsuit, I won’t provide a track by track breakdown of the album but must mention a few of the many highlights. The album opens with the single release Death To All But Metal which is a standout metal anthem bemoaning the absence of bands such as Def Leppard and Motley Crue whilst heavily slagging contemporary mainstream artists (see the video below) and, whilst the lyrics are rather childish (a fact not lost on the band who ask “why do all my lyrics sound like Dr Zeuss?”), I do find myself endorsing their sentiments to a large extent! Track 2, Asian Hooker, has some fine lyrical moments too and mixes a naive Asian Melody with a powerful, thumping rock riff to good effect.

Where the band may make few friends in the industry is with their ’so-close’ parodies of major rock hits. Party All Day, for example, has distinct similarities to Bon Jovi’s Living On A Prayer – but in this instance is about venereal disease and a rock n’ roll lifestyle of a waster: “smoke and drink and screw, that’s what I was born to do”.

Even closer to the knuckle is Girl From Oklahoma which is very nearly More Than Words by Extreme, however I won’t even begin to discuss the subject matter but let’s just say it’s not of the same ‘touching ballad’ sentiments of Extreme.

Of course, as you would expect from a hair metal band, there’s a classic ballad. Here that honour falls to Community Property: “if you were a hooker you’d know i’d be happy to pay. If suddenly you were a guy, I’d be suddenly gay” – almost brings a tear to the eye!

As said at the outset, the thing that really makes it work is that if you substituted the lyrics for more ‘mainstream’ ones, every track would still be a cracker and would easily sit alongside some of the greats of the era being lampooned. Some of the lead guitar work too is exceptional and follows various styles which is no mean feat in itself with Parrish soloing in the styles of Richie Sambora and even the neo-classical noodlings of Malmsteen with great aplomb.

Definitely worth purchasing for great, poweful rock tracks and a good laugh at the same time . . . unless you’re under 18 of course, in which case seek parental advice!

• Michael Starr – Vocals
• Satchel – Guitars
• Lexxi Foxxx – Bass
• Stix Zadinia – Drums

Madam X - We Reserve The Right (1984)

With a career only spanning one album, US glam metal band Madam X produced We Reserve The Right, their debut and swansong, in 1984. I was never too sure how to take Madam X – were they serious or having a bit of a laugh: it’s hard to tell for sure but I imagine that tongue was in cheek, at least for part of the time, as their stage attire and demeanour, coupled with their cheesy-metal lyrics and riffs, could only be done with a wry smile . . . couldn’t they? However, back to the album . . .

The opener is the title track from the album and was also a single if my memory serves me correctly – and was performed live on the short-lived Channel 4 heavy metal series ECT back in 1985: a performance which can be seen below. Bret Kaiser, apart from looking a little strange, puts on his best ‘metal voice’ for this ‘anthem’ – Sebastian Back from Skid Row was the vocalist when the band was getting together so had a narrow escape – which is one of the better tracks on the album.

Come One, Come All is another clenched fist pumping anthem with screechy vocals and lyrics of the most banal nature – and Kaiser’s inability to come up with a vocal melody that doesn’t largely follow the chugging chords of Maxin Petrucci is palpable . . . in fact, the ability to come up with anything melodic is rather lacking . . . including Petrucci’s guitar playing!

She’s Hot Tonight is a bit of an improvement, sounding distinctly like Shout At The Devil-era Motley Crue which is no bad thing, especially after hearing the first two tracks. Dirty Girls opens with a reasonable, if run-of-the-mill riff from Petrucci and the song canters at a reasonable pace and is again in Crue territory, albeit a pale imitation. Petrucci’s solo is rather gangrenous here too – as on most tracks. If you’ve ever heard Vinny Vincent on his ‘Invasion’ tracks soloing you’ll get the idea of Maxine Petrucci: no beginning, no end, no melody, no emotion but lots of speed.

Max Volume is a guitar instrumental penned by Maxine Petrucci and whilst a reasonable shred with a bit of chord picking thrown in for good measure, I don’t think Yngwie Malmsteen is going to need to keep looking over his shoulder! Fortunately, it’s a short piece before we’re into the up-tempo Metal In My Veins. Despite the awful lyrics – in fact any song with ‘metal’, ‘rock’ etc in their lyrics should be viewed with some scepticism – the actual track’s not bad, it’s a ballsy rocker and one of the ‘high points’ of the album.

Bearing in mind my comments above, We Reserve The Right To Rock is more fist clenching anthem fodder . . . don’t let anyone tell you to turn down your rock, play it on 10! Need I say more? Think of Twisted Sister’s I Wanna Rock and We’re Not Gonna Take It and lyrically you’re not far off . . . although compared to Madam X, Twisted Sister were light years ahead!

Good with Figures is again, a bludgeoning, chugging power-chord fest and not really distinguishable from the preceding track. Cat’s Got Your Tongue is another highly similar track, apart from the guitar sound which appears to have been recorded in a public convenience! The guitar sound persists on We Want Rock – I can’t even bring myself to comment further on this track.

Stand Up and Fight is a double-bass drum up tempo number but is, alas, about standing up and fighting for your right to play rock loudly . . . oh dear!

Madam X just about encapsulate in one album, all the elements on which I’m not overly keen in metal – and there’ aren’t many so that’s some achievement! The only good thing to come out of them was drummer Roxy Petrucci who went on to play in Vixen – and who I met about 20 years ago and was lovely – but apart from that, steer clear of this album (the cover alone should be enough to put the sane off purchasing it). Well, come to think of it, listen to the album as it will make you appreciate the other records in your collection all the more. Incidentally, ’singer’ – and I use the term very loosely – Bret Kaiser is now an Elvis impersonator . . . wonders will never cease!

• Bret Kaiser – Vocals
• Maxine Petrucci – Guitars
• Chris Doliber – Bass
• Roxy Petrucci – Drums

Lita Ford - Lita (1988)

Lita is the third studio album from British-born ex-Runaways guitarist Lita Ford and was her most successful reaching platinum status in the US and spawning a clutch of singles which troubled the charts on both sides of the Atlantic. The album was produced by 1970s hit songwriter Mike Chapman (responsible for Sweet’s early hits along with writing partner Nicky Chinn) and featured writing credits for a whole host of rock notables, and a duet with Ozzy which became the album’s biggest chart hit.

Back To The Cave opens the album and reminds me of Steve Miller’s Abracadabra . . . but with a latter period Carlos Santana on guitar: but maybe that’s just me! At any rate, it’s a powerful mid-tempo power-rock track with some fine guitar work from Ms Ford and is one of the strongest tracks on the album.

If I mentioned that the next track was co-written with Lemmy, how would you imagine it sounded? Yes, you’re right – opens with an Overkill-style double bass drum riff and then the track kicks-in proper and is a fast paced chugger of a riff with loud drums and Ford shouting the lyrics . . . in fact, apart from the Hammond accompaniment, this is erring on the side of Girlschool – which is not necessarily a bad thing! The track drops to half-time for the guitar solo (although Myron Grombacher rather kills it with over the top pounding drum fills) and then normal service is resumed.

The intro to Blueberry is a real shredding metal riff which you would imagine would lead into a rapid-fire metal track but in actual fact drifts into a mid-tempo heavily keyboard-orchestrated track with Ford’s guitar rather relegated to a backing instrument . . . which is a shame . . . but it’s not a bad track overall and Ford turns in a good solo once more – she’d certainly been practicing since her days in The Runaways!

Next-up is a very catchy 80’s ‘anthem’: Kiss Me Deadly. I remember this track getting a fair amount of airplay back in the day and it’s very formulaic 80’s fodder with a bouncy beat and generally ‘happy’ feel to it with a catchy chorus . . . not bad, just a bit cheesy. It’s also not written by Ford but Mike who, along with Mike Chapman, I assume were brought in to ensure a bit of commerciality was added to proceedings to temper Ford’s penchant for more ballsy rockers.

Co-written with Motley Cru’s Nikki Sixx, Falling In And Out Of Love could have been a real stomper of a track . . . and it is, almost but I feel Mike Chapman struck on this one – adding rather twee keyboards to an otherwise powerful ballad and mixing the guitar so far back as to be relatively inaudible: surely Nikki Sixx wouldn’t have approved of such a mix, or Ford for that matter? As the track progresses, however, the guitar does put in the odd appearance but those keyboards are just naff!

Fatal Passion is a powerful rock track and more suited to Ford’s vocals and guitar style than the previous offering – the mix has more power too with the track being co-written by Ford and Dave Ezrin and Punky Peru of Witch.

Uner The Gun opens with an electronic percussion pattern into which drifts keyboards and then Ford comes-in with a real powerful vocal on a very strong slow rocker (albeit with a horrible drum sound) featuring some of Ford’s most outstanding vocals and some nice guitar flourishes throughout. This is the only track on the album credited as being written solely by Ford and is a standout track.

Broken Dreams is a mellow number, again co-written by Ezrin, but stands-up well as a power-rock number however, the following track Close My Eyes Forever was the biggest hit from this album and, in my humble opinion, woeful! With song writing and vocal duties split between Ford and OZzy Osbourne you would expect this to be one heavy riff-fest. Unfortunately, do you recall Ozzy’s duet with Kelly Osbourne on Changes? Enough said!

On aggregate, this is a good album and shows a real depth of maturity in both playing, singing and song writing from Ford when compared to her youthful musings with The Runaways. However, this has to be balanced against Mike ‘bubblegum pop’ Chapman’s production – which doesn’t fit Ford at all – and the odd 80’s formula power-rock track that is crow barred in 2 – 3 times for commercial purposes. That said, it’s well-worth a listen and I get the distinct impression that none of my misgivings about this album were down to Ford herself, but more to do with RCA which is a pity.

• Lita Ford – Guitar/Vocals
• Don Nossov – Bass
• David Ezrin – Keyboards
• Craig Krampf – Guitar
• Myron Grombacher – Drums

Vixen - Vixen (1988)

Originally from Minnesota, it was a move to LA during the mid-1980s, along with a shuffling of line-up, that gave all-girl band Vixen the impetus required to gain a recording contract with EMI and to jump on the ‘hair metal’ bandwagon spewing forth from the city that was, for a short while at least, conquering a huge mainstream audience. For this album, their debut, EMI brought in the song writing talents of soft rock mullet-meister Richard Marx who set about, along with input from the band, creating a commercial melodic, but hard-edged, sound that fitted into the zeitgeist of the time. The album was reasonably successful on both sides of the Atlantic and spawned three singles that achieved considerable airplay with the, shall we say, photogenic nature of the group ensuring much airtime on the embryonic MTV.

One of the biggest hits, Edge of a Broken Heart opens the album and was penned by Marx and ex-Tubes front man Fee Waybill and just about encapsulates all the elements that made Vixen a strong act, and the whole scene of mass appeal, in one number: excellent production, driving riff and very strong vocals and chorus hook. Although the keyboards now sound a bit dated, the band are on really good form and Edge of a Broken Heart is a really strong opener for the album.

I Want You to Rock Me is up next and is a cross between John Parr’s St Elmo’s Fire and Queen’s We Will Rock You with a very heavily 80’s sounding gated reverb on Roxy Petrucci’s kit which isn’t great. It is at this point that you start to wonder if your initial enthusiasm was misplaced, but fortunately Cryin’ is up next which was a single from the album and, whilst following a rather formulaic power ballad format, is a very fine example and was the first single I’d heard from the band and was suitably impressed enough to buy it at the time which for someone to whom the whole ‘hair metal’ scene was their Nemesis, isn’t a bad recommendation!

American Dreams opens with Petrucci and Pedersen laying down a medium tempo rhythm to which Kuehnemund adds a riff then overlays a good bluesy solo. This is a very strong track that ticks over nicely and was written by US singer-songwriter John Butcher and is a little less ‘of the genre’ than some of the other tracks on the album. And whilst on the subject of ‘genre’, Desperate falls perfectly into the compulsory acoustic ballad territory so well plundered by US rock acts during the late-80s. However, the chorus picks things up and Kuehnemund – whose perception that the band wanted to oust her from her guitarist role largely led to the demise of the band following their follow-up release – puts in a good solo along with some fretless bass from Share Pedersen.

One Night Alone is catchy if unremarkable radio-friendly rock track which is followed by Kuehnemund back in the driving seat for the hard rocker Hell Raisers which, when you consider it was co-written by Nuclear Assault’s Scott Metaxas, was always going to be a heavy track! The follow-up single to Cryin’ is up next with Love Made Me and moves the album back to a more commercial footing with a mellow verse leading into a catchy chorus with full harmony vocals and wailing guitar outbursts from Kuehnemund and is one of the standout tracks on the album: the mid-8 lead-up to the guitar solo is a particularly well-crafted piece.

Waiting, written by Jan Kuehnemund and Janet Gardner, is a good plodding hard rock track with understated vocals on the verse that soar and soar leading up the chorus and, as an example of the band’s song writing, shows a slightly less formulaic and more heavy edge. Kuehnemund’s riff is good, and not merely working around a keyboard sequence as largely is the case elsewhere, and the guitar work throughout strong. Cruisin’ is also a Kuehnemund/Gardner track and once more is a powerful hard rock number, this time up-tempo, and motors along nicely with a less polished vocally-harmonised chorus than their ‘hits’ again indicating the band’s heavier leanings: this is more akin to a combination of Vixen and The Runaways . . . if you can imagine such a thing! Kuehnemund also gets the opportunity to let rip with a more lengthy, less chart-friendly, guitar solo which, being a fan of the odd shred, is only a bonus.

The album closes with Charmed Life, written by Gregg Tripp and Jeff Paris, and is back on a more AOR footing.

I love this album for what it is, a collection of very strong commercial rock tracks performed excellently by a talented group and, having worked on a tour with them in the UK, they reproduced their sound perfectly live . . . and I’ve still got a soft spot for Share Pedersen if I’m to be honest. However, not letting the Pedersen issue cloud my judgement, this is a great album of its genre and it’s a pity Vixen let internal squabbles halt the progress of this line-up after only two albums!

• Janet Gardner- Vocals
• Jan Kuehnemund- Guitar
• Share Pedersen- Bass
• Roxy Petrucci- Drums

Motley Crue - Shout At The Devil (1983)

I was never overly enamoured with the whole LA scene and bands it produced during the mid 1980s, a scene at which Motley Crue were at the forefront. However, listening to this multi-platinum selling album some 25 years later afresh, taking it for what it is – a hard rock album – as opposed to getting all hung-up over their image has been an interesting experience. The album, the band’s second, sold by the bucket load and largely propelled the four piece to mega-stardom and in the process, you could argue, created something of a monster in terms of the band itself and the whole scene it was partly responsible for spawning: but that’s a whole other discussion.

After a short intro piece the album proper opens with the title track which is a solid rock track with a grinding riff from Mars but the subsequent track, Looks That Kill, was I recall a rock club anthem back in the day and was one of the tracks that really defined the LA scene, and sound, and was one that had me reaching for my air guitar with a great grinding riff, snarling vocals from Neil and a catchy chorus: I’d go as far as to say that this track is now something of a classic and definitely one of the high points of the album.

A quick thrash around the kit from Tommy Lee opens Bastard with an up-tempo Priest-esque riff which then drops to half-time for the verse, picking-up again for the chorus. It was around this point on listening to the album in the present that it dawned on me that all the ‘glam’ overtones that alienated me towards Crue the first time around, and their ilk, was a bit misleading and that the music itself is in the realms of solid hard rock/metal with good, powerful riffs and screaming vocals, reminiscent of a lot of the non-Glam bands that I was really enjoying during the 1980s!

Next-up, a Beatles cover! An odd choice for a hard rock album, but their choice of Helter Skelter (cited as an inspiration for Charles Manson) from the ‘White Album’ was inspired as it suits Crue perfectly and they stick close to the original but with a distinctive Crue sound which really thunders along.

A Tommy Lee double-bass drum intro leads into Red Hot which is a fine up-tempo rocker that keeps the power levels up from start to finish with some double-tracked harmony guitar soloing from Mars towards the end of the track.

Too Young to Fall in Love, a single from the album, is another standout moment, and my personal favourite track, with a stabbing riff, powerful drumming from Lee and a good vocal performance and melody from Neil.

Knock ‘Em Dead Kid and Ten Seconds To Love continue in a similarly powerful vein and then the closing track Danger drops the mood with a chorused, picked guitar part from Mars leading into a strong ballad with a particularly melodic solo and strong performance from Neil.

The 2003 reissue of the album, from which the album cover above is taken, also features some demo versions of several of the tracks which are also worth a listen.

In summary, I’m at a bit of a loss for words to be truthful! In the 1980s I was into what I saw as the ’serious’ metal/rock bands such as Priest, UFO, Lizzy etc and rather dismissed what were later termed the ‘hair metal’ bands out of hand as a frivolous and irrelevant addition to the genre. However, maturity and hindsight are a wonderful thing and I have to confess that this album is a real belter and for those like me, who rather overlooked Motley Crue back in the day, I’d recommend putting aside what you know of their image, attitude and ’scene’ that they in a large part pioneered and just listen to the tracks with an open mind. What you’ll get is a collection of raw, powerful hard rock/metal tracks that would do nothing to diminish the musical credibility of any rock record collection!

• Vince Neil – Vocals
• Mick Mars – Guitar
• Nikki Sixx – Bass
• Tommy Lee – Drums