The right songs at the wrong time have doomed many great bands in rock-n-roll history. At the end of the 80s, record labels were desperate to feed the beast that was MTV and every band that played guitar were being forced into a specific mold designed to mimic the success of Poison. As expected, the industry put profit over music and the fallout was extreme. By 1991, their plans to homogenize the market were obliterated. Sadly, some really great rock-n-roll bands were lost in the rubble.
As record labels shifted their focus from the Sunset Strip to Seattle, Danger Danger and Trixter were dealt undeserved fates and their albums never received their due. Tokyo Motor Fist are setting the record straight with their latest album Lions. Much like their self-titled debut in 2017, Ted Poley (Danger Danger) and Scott Brown (Trixter) have fashioned another collection of infectious rock that owes as much to the power-pop of Cheap Trick as it does the glam-metal of Poison. However, if Lions has a single point of reference from the 1980s, it is undoubtedly Def Leppard’s Hysteria where rock and pop are perfectly polished into an unforgettable listening experience.
The opening pair of “Youngblood” and “Monster In Me” offers rich harmonies, soaring choruses, exciting guitar work and a rock solid low-end that would make Mutt Lange blush with envy. It also reveals a band taking their project a little more seriously. The debut sounded like a group of friends having fun without a lot of expectations. The success of that album has raised the stakes and the band has answered the call.
The epic ballad “Lions” has huge ambitions and trusts the listener to invest almost seven minutes into the cinematic experience it creates. The album then rewards the patience with the riff-riot of “Decadence On 10th Street” before settling into what Tokyo Motor Fist does best – mid-tempo rockers that sparkle and shine. Remember the supergroup Bad English? I hear that same collective greatness on “Blow Your Mind”.
Maybe one song too long (“Sedona” misses the mark a bit), there isn’t much else to complain about other than the disappointing artwork. While forever grateful that Frontiers Music is keeping rock alive while popular culture spends their money elsewhere, the art department’s aesthetic seems rooted in a weird fantasy world that always makes me cringe. At the end of the day, the music is all that matters and Tokyo Motor Fist have once again proven that rock-n-roll ain’t dead.