Boys in Heat

by

Britny Fox

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The band more than met the task of following up their successful debut with this offering. The vocal style is less distracting and not as forced, blending in with the instruments better. The songwriting is a mix of all that is good in rock - a blend of KISS, AC/DC, and Aerosmith. Guitar fans will find plenty of tasteful chops to steal and the solid drumbeats and bass lines are slammin'. It is what it is - rock music was not intended to be serious, just an expression of the youth of the time period in which it was made. Great fun to listen to if you just want rock & roll without the political messages or anguish over being a geek in a Seattle high school.

1989's Boys in Heat is the second album from Philly-based hair metallers Britny Fox. I was crazy about their self-titled debut album when I was a freshman in high school, but was under whelmed by this one.

Boys in Heat is a solid enough album, but it's probably my least favorite of the band's first three releases. It has some good songs, but there is also a fair amount of filler. "Standing in the Shadows" and "Angel in My Heart" are pretty catchy singles reminiscent of "Long Way to Love", and "Dream On" is the rare ballad that manages to avoid sounding like Poison's "Every Rose Has Its Thorn". The cover of Nazareth's "Hair of the Dog" was a nice touch, but given how much their sound relies on AC/DC you wonder why they didn't just cover "Back in Black" and get it over with. Aside from those four songs, the album starts to fall apart a bit. It maintains a steady rocking pace, but the songs start to blend together after a while.

This was the last Britny Fox album to feature Dean Davidson on vocals, which in retrospect seems like a good deal. The band's follow-up album Bite Down Hard had some much needed energy, and Davidson's new venture Blackeyed Susan was just as impressive.