BITE DOWN HARD

Britny Fox, was one of those 80s glam bands that fit right underneath the big guns like Poison and Motley Crue. Their debut album had its fans, and it managed to sell over a million copies, pretty impressive, considering they sounded alot like Cinderella meets Ratt. "Bite Down Hard" mixes up the rough and forceful pop metal sound of Motley Crue's "Girls Girls Girls" with bits of Skid Row. But Britny's sound can be summed as being a generic pop metal package. Not particularly anything special, but still some good tunes scattered about for good measure. Their vocalist had volume, although not the high screeching range of Sebastian Bach, but somewhere in the same straightforward area. Tommy Paris, the singer on "Bite Down Hard" was actually the replacement for the Tom Keifer soundalike, "Dizzy" (ugh, how cheese)Dean Davidson. The improvement in the vocal area for the band made all the difference in seperating this release from their prior two. Guitars are standard stuff, nothing spectacular but it gets the job done, and is pleasant if anything.

The songs however, are what make the album, and this release has a handful of good tracks, while the rest fall short into glam metal boring-ness. The first two songs aren't really worth mentioning, standard fare. "Liar" is catchy, if repetitive, with an acoustic opening which transfers over into a moderate paced hard rock tune. "Closer To Your Love" comes from the same book as Ratt and Cinderella, big gang(bang) chorus, slightly breaking on the top vocals, like alot of the true GLAM bands were known for. Typical guitar solo. "Over and Out" is an acoustic ballad that reminds me of Trixter and Extreme for some reason, probably for the overuse of acoustic 'clangy' guitars. Not bad, but not great either. "Shot From My Gun" is my favorite tune from the album. Its a little bit harder with Ozzy ish type vocals, and cool chorus that's memorable and addictive. If I have to pick a song from the album, this is it, great track that seems to fit their style perfectly. Rushed, rapid fire vocal delivery and heavier guitar riffing, and another large chorus make "Black and White" another cool tune. The rhyming nature of the sex charged lyrics definitely make it stand out as well as the background type vocals that are almost rapcore, being fast and almost spoken. Its so far in the background its almost not noticable. "Look My Way", is great for a glam ballad, with hints of Kix and Ratt mixed in. More basic glam metal in the tune "Lonely Too Long", with lyrics that I am definitely not going to bother contemplating the meaning of. It sounds alarmingly like another glam metal song but I am not going to bother trying to figure out what either. "Midnight Moses" is a remake of UK artist, Alex Harvey's 1972 song. Isn't that exciting? errr not really. Basic blah glam metal, in fact, the song is pretty bad.