This is normally where I’d tell you how I nearly vomited with how wimpy and sugary the song was but in a welcome twist in the tale, I loved the instrumental which had a really strong and cool sound to it. That song feeds into the instrumental “Cry No More” and the aforemention ballad track, “One Way Ticket’. Side two opened with “Bitch Is Back” (an original track, not a cover of the Elton John song), which given how the band is situated now, comes off sounding like the perfect song to open their live sets. Guns (which featured Phil Lewis on vocals, Tracii Guns and Mick Cripps on guitar, Kelly Nickels on bass and Steve Riley on drums) rocketed through what can only be described as some of their now-classic tracks like the immensely satisfying “Sex Action” (no pun intended there), “One More Reason” and “Electric Gypsy”. In fact, the band rarely takes their foot off the gas on the album with the exception of the ballad track, which by 1988 was pretty much a required element for any band releasing material. The first side of the album bursts out of the speakers with a real kick in the pants rocker in “No Mercy”. So you can imagine how delighted I was to be kind of experiencing the music again like it was the first time. I bought the album on cassette when it first came out but it disappeared from my collection and I never bothered to get it back until I started gathering material for this series. Nor can I recall why I probably haven’t listened to it in nearly 30 years either. The funny thing about that statement is that try as I might, I can’t remember why this was the only album that I ever bought from the band. ![]() While they might never have attained the commercial peaks as some of their counterparts, this debut is chock full of great music. The eleven tracks show the band as a down and dirty gritty rock and roll band. Instead I want to focus on the album itself. If you paid any attention to the Los Angeles metal scene in the 1980’s, you know all about the birth of the band, so I’m not going to rehash that here. Guns has found itself on over the 30 plus years of its existence, they really had it all going for them on this first album. Say what you want about the long and winding (and ever so confusing) road that the band L.A. These opinions are strictly my own and do not reflect the views of anyone else at Limelight Magazine. There will be some review analysis and my own personal stories about my connection with various albums. Some of the albums I have known about and loved for years, while others are new to me and were music I’ve always wanted to hear. The aim of this series is to highlight both known and underappreciated albums from rock, pop and metal genres from this time period through the cassette editions of their releases. ![]() ![]() The Cassette Chronicles is a continuing series of mini reviews and reflections on albums from the 1980’s and 1990’s.
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