Album Review: Crazy Lixx - Forever Wild

Crazy Lixx has been trying to keep the sound of 80s excess alive, although why a bunch of guys who didn't live through that time chose that style for their band is something I'm not sure I understand. The same thing is true elsewhere, such as how Greta Van Fleet both look and sound like hippies pulled from a second-rate Woodstock. We know there's an act being portrayed, which does put a bit of a fog over the results of the records. If they aren't being honest, and we know they aren't being honest, how is the music supposed to endure? Sure, Motley Crue and those such bands were largely garbage (as musicians and as people), but they weren't being something they weren't.

They have mastered the sound of the late 80s, for sure. The guitar tone has that reverb-tinged overdrive, and the gang choruses are straight off MTV. The only difference between what Crazy Lixx are doing here and what Def Leppard was doing in the 80s is that you can't make the "what has nine arms and sucks?" joke about them. They're playing a crunchy style of hard rock eschews any of the soft, melty cheese that large percentages of today's scene is coated in. Crazy Lixx are definitely a rock band first, which definitely helps them.

If I can draw a comparison, this record isn't totally dissimilar to Hardcore Superstar's breakthrough "Dreamin' In A Casket". They both borrow from the sleazy days of rock, though one with far more snotty attitude than the other. What I'm getting at is how, after Hardcore Superstar utterly collapsed, it proved just how hard it is to consistently deliver this kind of music. Heck, even one of the model bands, Guns N Roses, managed only one good album.

Sure, Crazy Lixx is going a bit too close for comfort on "Eagle", but it's a great song. In fact, even though it sounds so much like them, this Def Leppard hater likes it more than any of their songs. ("Pour Some Sugar On Me" is one of the worst rock songs ever - sorry, just saying it.) In another sense, Crazy Lixx is the counterweight to Steel Panther, as they both sound remarkably alike, and both have tongue-in-cheek, but only one of them makes music worth giving a damn about. Hint, it's not Steel Panther.

This is another record where you have to buy into the throwback sound. If you still dig the sound of the 80s, then Crazy Lixx has delivered a pretty darn good representation of what that time was all about. I wish they pulled back slightly on the overt nostalgia, but then again I don't think I'm the target audience. Even so, I like what they're doing. If party rock is ever going to come back, Crazy Lixx might be the band to do it.