Miss Crazy, 2005

Pretend you have been handed a promo picture of a new band. There are four guys and one girl in the band and only one of the guys has long hair. All five members are dressed in black, they are also all wearing white mime make-up on their faces plus they have their eyebrows outlined in black and they are wearing black lipstick. What would you think this band would sound like? Maybe some gothic kind of stuff or something like that would be my guess. San Francisco's Miss Crazy actually sound a lot like early Cinderella as singer sounds quite a bit like Tom Keifer. They also have some 80's AC/DC and some early Def Leppard tossed in there as well."No compromise" kicks off the album in great form with a bit of dark edge and some tough vocals thrown in. I wish the whole could have been as good as the opener and when you get a good opener it raises the expectations a bit. The album is good, but it's been a bit of a grower on me. I went back and forth on this one because I think it's good, but there are times when I felt that they should and could be better. The singer is very good, the band is way better than average and the production is extremely tight. My biggest problem is there are number of songs that are just decent, but not all that memorable. Tracks like "Scream" and "Shut eyes" hint at the band's potential to go beyond their influences and put their own ideas in as well. The ballad "You're blue" at first reminded me of Cinderella's "Nobody's fool" but after a few listens I could hear a moodiness that was present and the ability to squeeze a lot out of some simple notes. It sparks like these that make me think that this might have the potential to move beyond being just an 80's retro band and do more. After I began writing this review on Sunday morning, I checked around and found that the band has been playing shows in California over the summer. They have also changed their make-up a little and they look a little more relaxed and a little less grim. The band apparently did not play any shows before releasing this album, but all of the members are musicians who had played around in other projects. They have also had some line-up changes as both guitarists who played on the album are gone. They have a new lead guitarist and the singer has taken on playing rhythm guitar. I hope they keep working with what they have started and expand on what they may be capable of doing. Here is their Myspace page if you want to check them out. I was having trouble getting all the images to come up, but I have been having computer problems all day.
http://www.myspace.com/misscrazymusic