CRAZY LIXX – New Religion

The first time I heard about this Swedish four piece was back in 2007 when they were about to release their debut album, Loud Minority and my first thought was why anybody would choose such a stupid name for a band – with an even worse spelling. The pictures told me that they were one of those bands that hailed from The New Wave Of Swedish Glam and Sleaze. Musically, that wasn’t exactly the case. Some tunes were certainly in that category, but most of them were more in the vein of early nineties hard rock bands such as Warrant or Slaughter. Listening to its follow up, all the touring they did has made them lots of good. One the bad side, they lost their guitar player Vic Zino to touring mates Hardcore Superstar, but on the other hand they gained their new guitar player, unknown Andy Dawson, one of the most interesting new young guitarists around. You’ll be hearing lots more from this guy, mark my words. In the songwriting department, lead singer and main songwriter Danny Rexon has grown miles since the last album, his vocal range now being much bigger than on their last album.

Where their last CD was uneven, this one is not. Gone are the sleaze / glam parts and now they’re reaching towards a more arena rock sound. With Chris Laney once again at the helm as producer, they have made this CD sound huge.Opener “Rock And A Hard Place” is a major arena rock killer that will work magnificent as a live opener, first single ”My Medicine (R.O.C.K.)” is the bastard child of Def Leppard’s ”Let’s Get Rocked” and Poison’s ”Unskinny Bop” and this is not only brilliant, it’s also a HIT! So is ”Blame It On Love”. Think Danger Danger if they were a great band. And then there is ”She’s Mine”, a great party tune complete with a honky tonk piano and the lyric “…everyone’s got a sweet tooth for candy…” – brilliant! With ”What Of Our Love” they show us all how to write an excellent power ballad. On the heavier side they give us ”Witching Hour” and ”Voodoo Woman”, two killer tracks that fits the album extremely well. Not too much bad to say about this album except that, even though a decent song, ”Lock Up Your Daughters” is a bit too cliché for comfort. I have to point out that The Lixxers does nothing new, nothing is original here and they wear their influences on their sleeves, but originality is, when you have material like this, totally overrated. Even though their name still is corny, this is a killer album with a fantastic production and if arena rock is your case of beer, then you’d be a fool not to buy it.

Jon Wilmenius (8/10)

Tracklist:

1. Rock and a Hard Place
2. My Medicine
3. 21 ‘Til I Die
4. Blame it on Love
5. Road to Babylon
6. Children of the Cross
7. The Witching Hour
8. Lock up Your Daughter
9. She’s Mine
10. What of Our Love
11. Desert Bloom
12. Voodoo Woman