Hair metal hodge podge- Maximum, Loud n' nasty

I have not bought a CD in almost two years I believe unless you count blank discs to record on. However there was a time when I bought way too many CDs. Recently I was moving some of my CDs to a different part of the house and I saw a bunch of hair metal discs I bought years ago and decided to start a new feature around them. So here's the deal I threw all these discs in bags and when I do a segment I'll reach in and grab two at random. The write a little about their background, list influences, what's good and bad about each plus a final word. That way I give this discs a second chance without spending too much time on them. The only rules are I have to use discs I already own and I can't use ones that I used in my Lesser of two evils segment years ago. There will be some barely known bands as well as some known bands too. So let's get at the first segment.



Maximum-Just for kicks

Background-These guys were from Boston and they signed to Enigma records around the late 80's. They recorded an album, but Enigma went under before it was released. So it set until 2002 when Sunset records from Germany got a hold of the album and finally released it.

Influences-Poison, Motley Crue, Pretty Boy Floyd

The Good- Musically these guys are fairly tight. Although basic the guitarist does an alright job of mixing up the tones. Most of the songs are medium fast in tempo which helps up their lack of ideas.

The Bad-The biggest problem is the singer has a limited range and he struggles a tune. He gets even worse during the ballads and I mean so bad that 10 seconds in I was cringing. He sounds like he had no style of his own. i can imagine him saying to his band mates "hey check out my Bret Michaels and next I'll do my Vince Neil". Of course all his vocals were the same-rotten. After that the biggest problem is their sound was generic. A lot of the songs move, but at best they sounded like second rate copies of their influences. Oh and they look silly too.

Final word-These guys were better than a number of bands that got signed. However I don't think that we missed out by having to wait over a decade to hear this one. I could certainly wait another decade or two before hearing it again.




Loud ' Nasty-Teaser Teaser

Background-Hailing from Sweden this trio knocked out a few albums in the previous decade.

Influences- Ratt, Motley Crue (early), Black -n- Blue (early)

The good-Vocalist Rob Nasty (later of XXX) had a deep raspy voice which works a lot better in this style than high pitched whining or nasal drone. The songs are simple, but catchy. Even the ballad is decent. Well, look at the influences- all decent bands in this genre.

The bad- The songs are so basic. What you hear in the first thirty seconds is all you are going to get from their songs. Most of the tracks are quite likable, but they never quite push hard enough to get something like the Crue's "Red Hot" or Ratt's "The morning after".

Final word-Nothing new here at all, I liked this band and have since I first heard them almost a decade a go. They don't try to be anything more than decent 80's glam, but they do achieve that goal at least. This album sounded as good as the last I heard it which was probably at least two years ago.

There you go. I'll be back with two more in the near future.