Crazy Lixx - Thrill of the Bite (2025)

Country: Sweden
Style: Hard & Heavy
Rating: 8/10
Release Date: 14 Feb 2024
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"We like it hard and we like it fast", sings Danny Rexon on the opener, Highway Hurricane, but this isn't extreme at all. This is old school hard rock/heavy metal with a strong focus on riffs and hooks, a lot heavier than when much the same band backs Chez Kane on her melodic rock albums. Oddly, I've reviewed two of those now but nothing by Crazy Lixx themselves, who have been around since 2002, so let's try to remediate that, or least start to do so.

The goal of Rexon and his fellow founding band members was to revisit the eighties and the glory days of glam metal. The band has evolved over time, with Rexon the only musician left from 2002, but they're still doing much the same thing, even if I wonder if they've moved away over time from the cheesier aspects of the genre. Highway Hurricane certainly has a glam metal flavour but it's a song structured like Saxon might structure a song, or even Vow Wow, who sang about a different Hurricane. Who Said Rock n' Roll Roll is Dead right after it has a Kiss vibe, with a great hook that extends beyond the chorus.

Where things could go horribly wrong is Little Miss Dangerous, because, while it follows up with a fresh great hook that extends beyond the chorus, it plays into the cheesier end of glam metal. It's more rooted in Hanoi Rocks or Poison and we cab easily imagine it, with a poppier outlook, played by a band of men dressed up to look like women, rather than the more masculine approach taken by this band on the cover of the album. I can even see the official video unfolding, with the band clumping together to stalk the camera during the midsection.

However, it doesn't go horribly wrong at all. It's an excellent song, with a catchy core hook firmly in the eighties style that refuses to leave your brain. However, on top of all the sassy moments, it has real meat to it with more Saxon-esque riffs, and it extends wonderfully to six minutes, leaving the last few for an emphatic build. Back in the day, there would, of course, be a three minute version intended for airplay, with a picture disc edition, and it would be a hit. Every song here is catchy but this one is earworm level of catchy. It's the best song here, with one exception.

What follows over this ten track album often mixes those two angles in very different ways.

There is a heavy side to everything, with strong and chunky eighties riffs, often in that Saxon style but sometimes in others, like Call of the Wild, which features AC/DC power chords and fretboard work, or Hunt for Danger, which sounds like solo Ozzy, from the Jake E. Lee era rather than earlier. Final Warning is so eighties that I could swear it's a cover. Sure, I can't place those vocal melodies right now or that opening guitar, which is probably the heaviest thing on this album, but they're acutely familiar.

However, there's also a light side to everything, every track pumped up with big glam hooks and a focus on melody that highlights why Crazy Lixx spend so much time playing with Chez Kane. Not all the melodies feel like pop melodies, as Midnight Rebels sometimes sounds like Skid Row covering Accept, but the other end of that spectrum is Run Run Wild, right before it, which could easily be a pop song with very different filters thrown on it. As it stands, it's more like Skid Row covering the Backstreet Boys. Or is it NSync? I can't tell the difference.

It's where those two sides collide best that Crazy Lixx shine brightest. I really ought to gravitate to the more traditionally hard rock songs like Highway Hurricane over the glam metal ones like Little Miss Dangerous. I do like the former but the latter becomes real highlight for me. It's simply done so well that it can't be ignored. My favourite track, though, is easily the closer, Stick It Out, which is Highway Hurricane done even better. Everything works in this song. The pace is up, the guitarwork is alive and the hooks are huge. It's a great six minute Y&T song in under four.

Crucially, everything here stands up to multiple listens. I may have my highlights and you may have different ones, because there's a clear love for an entire era here not just for certain bands, but I can't pick out a weak song for any reason. I guess that means that this is another 8/10 album.