Lesser of two evils

It's been a while since I have done one of these, but let's give it go. We have



Cycle Sluts from hell-s/t (1991)



Vs.

Lita Ford-Stilleto (1990)

So we have a joke band (the Cycle Sluts) who made the mistake of trying too hard to be a serious band on some songs. Then we have Lita Ford who was once a good musician when she was with the Runaways and on her first two albums, but by this point she had become a bit of a joke. The years 1990 and 1991 saw a huge outpouring of hard rock and metal releases. There were some good ones, but there were a lot of misfires. These two would be included in that second group. One difference this time around is that the credits for the Cycle Sluts from hell don't actually list who played drums or bass. I know the names of people who played in the band around that time, but since it's not confirmed I can't credit anyone. I will still be judging those instruments anyhow.

Lord Roadkill

Vocals

Venus Penis Crusher, Queen Vixen, She-Fire Of Ice and Honey 1 %'er for the Cycle Sluts take on Lita Ford. Quantity doesn't mean quality as the Cycle Sluts foursome are not exactly bursting with talent. They handle the funnier songs alright, but on many of the other songs they just sound like a bunch of goofy bartenders who somehow lucked into getting signed to a record deal. Oh, wait maybe they sound like that because that's what they really were. Lita's vocals much like most of this album suffer from overproduction. However she hits enough moments to show her talent.

Point to the Lita Ford

Guitarists

Lord Roadkill is up for the Cycle Sluts and he is taking on Lita Ford. Lord Roadkill's playing is fairly average, but he hits a few decent solos. If Lita had shown the playing she did around 83-84 then she would have won this battle easily. Unfortunately it was 1990 and Lita was letting the quest for success overshadow her skill. So her guitar parts are very subdued and limp.

Point to the Cycle Sluts



Rhythm section

Lita Ford's rhythm section on this album was drummer Myron Grombacher and bass player Donnie Nossov taking on some unknown person or persons for the Cycle Sluts. I was close to giving a tie except there was a song or two where I heard the bass for just a few instances on the Cycle Sluts album. That trumps hearing the run of the mill, slicked up sound of Lita Ford's hired guns. So...

Point to Cycle Sluts





Originality/Production

Originality? Uh, I guess these two acts were in the bathroom when that was being handed out. Production? It's like Mike Chapman just smoothed and fluffed up Lita's album in every way he could. The result is a lot of polish and not much else. Glen Robinson handled production duties for the Cycle Sluts album and he did a very standard job. Nothing special, but everything is as should be.

Point to the Cycle Sluts

Who rocks more?

Lita Ford only hit on a few songs here. The ones that were alright were pale versions of where she had been earlier in her solo career. The Cycle Sluts are at their best on their joke songs like "Wish you were a beer" and "Bad Ass Mama". Unfortunately they spent almost half of the album trying to do some semi-serious metal songs that just drag along. Their album would have been much better had it been an EP with just the joke songs. Still they didn't have to do much to best out the lifeless effort of Lita Ford.
Point to the Cycle Sluts

Here are few other items of note on these albums. The Cycle Sluts had a demo out way back in like 1988 and it got some notice. By the time they got signed and released an album, the whole hard rock scene was fading. Lita Ford did a cover of Alice Cooper's "Only women bleed" on this album". While the music was fine, it's a prime example of the fact that it is difficult to cover Alice. He could take even an okay song like "Only Women bleed" and elevate it with his odd and unique vocals. Rounding out Lita's band was keyboardist David Ezrin. Ezrin had previously played with Witch and of course is the son of producer Bob Ezrin.

Okay, the Cycle Sluts take an easy 4-1 victory, but neither album was a joy to listen to. Hoped you liked reading it though. I will try to be more regular about doing these again. The next one will probably be Ozzy's Ozmosis vs. Black Sabbath's Never say die.

Some more mini-reviews

I am still making it through that stack of older CDs that I picked up a few weeks ago. I am finding that some are gems, some are not and the rest fall at different levels in between. So here are five more that I listened to this past week.

Budgie-Power Supply (1980)
It was the 80's and Budgie had changed guitarists yet this was probably their best album in six years at that point. A much heavier, more raw album than they had done in some time. This one gets overlooked far too often because too many people assume this was after their prime.

Survivor-Vital Signs (1984)
Almost every song sound like something that someone would pick to have played at their wedding. I like some AOR and the vocals are strong, but this is just so sappy that I can only take it in small doses. Plus the fact that so many songs here were overplayed on the radio back in 84-85.

Cycle sluts from hell (1991)
This is a mixed bag overall and I actually bought this on cassette when it came out. Some of the songs are joke songs and they work, but then they try to be sort of serious and those songs are just alright. It would have been stronger as just a total joke album.

MSG-Save yourself (1989)
I liked when Robin McAuley sang for MSG, he had a good voice and was a nice fit. This album is decent, but it's a just a bit retrained at times. It really seemed like they needed for the music to just explode a little more and the album could have used that extra energy.

LA Guns-Cocked and loaded (1989)
I think I wore out a copy of this on cassette back then. It's still good, but not nearly as explosive as I remember it being. I think this band's biggest problem was that even when they rocked they had problems really defining their own sound.

The Budgie CD was the only one I had not heard before. The Survivor CD was about like I remembered it being, the LA Guns and Cycle Sluts were not as good as I remember them being and the MSG one may have been a little better than I remember it being years ago. There you go, I may post some more of these as I eventually make it through the rest of the pile.