ANGRY LITTLE FREAK
Livin' It Up
Purple Box Records
2004
It may come as a shock to some people reading this, but there was a time, not too long ago in fact, when hard rock and metal were fun. I know, hard to believe for those of you who grew up with music in the 90s, but it's true. People actually bought albums and went to concerts because the bands and artists put on a really entertaining show. Even with Christian metal, where the message was just as important as the music, it was a fun time. That was before the giant buzz-kill that was the 90s music scenes rained on our fun. What a dark time it was, folks...
And for those who miss the fun times, I direct your attention to Angry Little Freak's second release, Livin' It Up. This disc harkens back to a time before KISS removed their makeup, when Alice Cooper's stage show was as big as the music, and the hard rock had a heavy hook that begged to be cranked to eleven. Songs like "Reach For The Sky", "You're So Cruel", "Know The Enemy", "Livin' It Up", and "Lady Lust" have that riff-heavy hard rock sound that KISS had on albums like Destroyer back in the day. In fact, speaking of KISS, the song "Tonight" is a reworking of the KISS song "I Was Made For Loving You" (now if I can only talk him into redoing "God Of Thunder"...). If that wasn't enough, songs like "Step Right Up", "In The Ground" (love the synth at the beginning), "Miserable Wretch" (which is the most metal of the songs here) and "Dead Ones In The Basement" (which harkens back to the spooky shock rock of classic Alice Cooper) gives the album some dark touches. Lyrically, Livin' It Up is by a Christian, for the lost, sticking it in with other classics like Saint's Times End, Bloodgood's Detonation and Barren Cross' Rock For The King...
My only beef with this CD, folks, is that it's too short. Some of the songs seem to end too early, leaving me hanging. I hunger for more. While I have a sneaking suspicion that Angry Young Freak is better experienced live than on CD, with a beefier production and some killer solos thrown in here and there, future projects have the potential to be epic (not to mention what kind of KISS-like merchandising that can ensue...the Angry Young Freak alarm clocks! Angry Young Freak lunch boxes! Action figures! Comic books! Cheesy Angry Young Freak Meets The Phantom Of The Park movie! But I digress...) Bottom line, check this thing out. You won't regret it...
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