Swedish rockers Crazy Lixx celebrate their 15th anniversary by going back to the future with ten songs of 80s metal mayhem. Ruff Justice sounds as if it’s come straight out of a mid 80s horror or action soundtrack with many of the tunes easily propping up a sporting montage sequence. From the chunky guitar opening bars of Wild Child it’s as if you are back in 1985 with big hair, big licks and even bigger groin padding – this is the finest glam metal, cock rock on offer since Steel Panther started to take themselves a bit too seriously (yawn.)
It certainly helps the influence of the album that two of the tracks (Live Before You Die, XIII) appear on the new Friday 13th videogame. There’s even another track entitled Killer which is all about cinema’s favourite masked maniacs. Cinefiles will of course remember that hardcore rock stars have often lent their gravelly screams to the soundtracks of movies (Alice Cooper and Megadeath being the obvious examples) and it’s pretty certain to say that had Crazy Lixx been around in 1982 they would also have found themselves on the end credits of a slasher film too. Speaking of slashers, lead singer and producer Danny Rexon says that like their previous album the band wanted an ‘all killers, no fillers’ approach – and clearly they have literally taken this to heart. There’s certainly no tracks that slow the album down, but it does have the repetitive feel of the endless 80s sequels after a while – enjoyable but pretty predictable.
Groupie Rating 3/5