Crazy Lixx : 'Thrill of the Bite"

Northern Europe is invested in 80s hait metal as that is the scene most of these newer bands are coming from. This band is from Sweden. The album rolls out with a song that could have come from the Sunset Strip. The guitars lean more toward metal. There are big anthemic hooky choruses. More metal in the guitar attack than Warrant, these guys have the benefit of not clamoring for the radio playtime that the original bands from this era fought for. Bands like Bon Jovi, Motley Crue, and Ratt established themselves early on as the standard for that sort of thing, as the next wave of bands like Poison and Cinderella followed then all the bands that came after pursued one of those paths to success, they are not hampered by that kind of competition and can pull from a broader range of less radio-ready guitar sounds that we take for granted these days, since after hair metal grunge made everything more angsty. Hence, the general public became more accepting of an overdriven guitar. 

With a song like "Who Said Rock N Roll is Dead" there are moments where they sound more like a Bon Jovi cover band, though they balance things out with a few more metal accents here and there. "Little Miss Dangerous" reminds me of "Trash" era Alice Cooper, particularly around the choruses. There is a little more homogenized Def Leppard feel to "Call of the Wild" that is not really aggressive enough to sell the lyrics they should have gone for a more WASP-like sound. Their guitar solos are pretty decent and capture the feel of the times. They are more convincing on "Recipe for Revolution" though if you listen too closely you might pick up on undercurrents of "Youth Gone Wild" 

"Run Run Wild" sounds like Desmond Child had a hand in it, so it's impressive that there are many students of the era, though at this point in the album I begin to listen for any trace of who these guys might be outside of puppets to their influences. Not a big fan of all the layers of backing vocals they stack on the chorus, Def Leppard was normally guilty of this back in the day. This will never make it to American radio, and it's very curious what the state of Euro radio might be to play this, though their audience is clearly defined. The metal tendencies of the guitar ebb down the further into the album we go, "Hunt For Danger" reminds me of White Lion. Perhaps not as power ballad-oriented as those guys. The last two songs find the guitar taking on more of a Dokken-like strut. I 'll give this one an 8, as it devolves into more of a tribute to an era, though taken more seriously than Steel Panther. 

 

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