LEYLA FORD ON CRAZY LIXX: HOW SWEDE IT IS
The newly-announced Poison and Motley Crue US tour is nice, but Sweden pretty much has got the whole sleaze rock thing down properly. There’s Crashdiet, the glam-rock forefathers of Swede sleaze; Reckless Love, who, if they’d been any fluffier, could be substituted for Easter animals; and my personal favorite Hardcore Superstar, who are harder and more thrash/punk than glam.
Crazy Lixx lands smack in the middle of this (and more — the UK is getting in on the sleaze action and the less said about that right now the better). Their songs are basically pop songs performed really loud with a couple extra guitars. Formed in 2002, this four-piece from Malmo, Sweden has so far put out only two albums. The first of which, 2007’s Loud Minority, is nearly impossibly to get. (Luckily, I have a nice Australian friend coming through for me. See, this is why you make friends with other countries. To get music. Worked when I was trying to track down Kvelertak too.)
Their 2010 release, New Religion, is available on iTunes. Sometimes I like to gamble with music, so I play a game: the stupider the band name, the catchier the music. This absolutely blows up in my face more often than not. But every once in a while, I strike gold. I bought it on an impulse and man, was I happy. (Crazy Lixx was named after a Japanese plastic toy guitar that singer, Danny Rexon, had as a kid.)
From start to finish, it’s just a fun album. “She’s Mine” is the epitome of a car song. You blast it out and piss off every single person in and around your vehicle. It’s bouncy and stupidly catchy with it’s rollicking piano and references to a particularly alluring female and if it had sax too, it would’ve been the perfect pop metal song. I adore sax. Everything should have saxophones. Learn from Michael Monroe. There’s a reason that he’s one of the greatest living frontmen.
“Children of the Cross” (which I first misread as “Children of the Corn,” one of few movies to legitimately freak me the fuck out — I don’t much like children) is a slower number of the kind that I’ve always skipped over as a rule. But to be fair, I listened to it all the way through and it’s not half-bad. Kind of mournful but with plenty of “metal” yodeling. Meanwhile, “Road to Babylon” and “Lock Up Your Daughter” are screeching, happy times.
The standout song on the whole record has to be, “21 ‘Til I Die” (above). It’s the song Sebastian Bach wish he’d written before he wrecked Skid Row (P.S. What the fuck was Subhuman Race?). It’s a combination of “18 and Life” and “Youth Gone Wild.” All brash attitude and roaring choruses. Making it the first song on the record? They chose wisely and thus ended up on my 2010 Top 15, er 10 list.
–LF
Click here for Crazy Lixx’s tasty 2010 record New Religion on iTunes now. These truly are crazy, crazy, crazy, crazy lixx.
