Author: Aleš Podbrežnik
Artist: Trixter
Label: Frontiers Records
Release: 2012
Runtime: 43:44
Rating: 4.5/5
And here’s yet another proper official studio document of yet another reunion, this time of a classic band, a representative of the early-nineties glam metal school. Trixter, back in action with their original lineup since 2007, are releasing their third studio album after exactly 20 years.
To refresh your memory quickly: the MTV-style grunge wave of the mid-nineties swept these Americans from New Jersey off the scene, just like many other bands that had been busy providing plenty of good party-time rock n’ roll back then. The guys didn’t sit idle in the period up to 2007, though, and kept creating in various lineups. Guitarist Steve Brown made his way through “one man show” type gigs, as well as a “Van Halen cover band” called Unchained and modern melodic rock outfits with lesser-known names, such as Throwan Rocks, Soaked, 40ft Ringo and Stereo Fallout. Bassist P.J. Farley played in a band called Ra.
In 1990, Trixter had enormous commercial success with their self-titled debut. The album »Trixter« went gold in a relatively short time after its release and gave us three hits: Surrender, One In A Million and Give it To Me Good. A tour with Scorpions, Poison and Warrant followed. Things were going like a dream for the band, and two years later the album »Hear!« came out. Trixter hit the road again, this time with Kiss. But by then MTV was already hungry for grunge. You know the rest of the story from here.
After a breakthrough show at the RockLahoma festival in 2008, there was no going back. More gigs followed, and within four years the band put together enough new material for a new album. They also invited three prominent guests who contributed ideas for it: Glen Burtnik (Styx), Rachel Bolan (Skid Row) and Snake Sabo (Skid Row). Incidentally, Trixter took their first career steps in the very same New Jersey clubs as their fellow countrymen and comrades-in-arms Skid Row, and Kix too.
»New Audio Machine« can be called a true continuation of the story that came to a way-too-early halt for the band in 1992 with the album »Hear!«. It’s a great record that stands proudly next to both of the Trixter albums from the nineties. No less, no more! Just put the song Dirty Love under the analytical “vise”. A thick, pulsating framework from a dynamic rhythm section, a potent and infectious guitar riff that sends adrenaline into your blood, a lived-in, shamelessly lewd vocal: these are ingredients that, in optimal arrangement positions, ignite at full blast. The gradual build-up of atmosphere with a “crescendo” in the chorus and a melody that’s predictably backed by melodic quotes from gang-style male choirs push you toward picking forbidden fruit. That’s roughly how you can sum up every single song on the new album, not just Dirty Love.
Right after Dirty Love, an AC/DC-style stripped-down riff hits in the chorus of the song Machine. This is an album that’s fired up by toxic bombast. In a new-era production sense, of course, one that’s splendidly white-hot, catching a moment of liveliness. The album opens in an acoustic manner with a deliberately Southern/country teasing in the song Drag Me Down, but it’s soon flooded eruptively by an adrenaline-charged Trixter rush for new times! The acoustic intro recalls the opening of the album »Hear!«, and that alone should instantly be enough to give the listener a fleeting first feeling that this album hides a real continuation of the classic Trixter story. Speaking of Drag Me Down, those (otherwise un-Trixter-like, suspicious) “nah-nah-nah” chants in the chorus make you associate that this very idea for the album was contributed by Glen Burtnik. Speaking of Burtnik, the fifth song on the album, called Live It For Today, hints at such guesses even more directly. It’s a heartfelt semi-acoustic song with a high melodic yield, atmospherically contrasted with a brilliant use of backing vocals (the chorus), and the mood in the chorus is deepened by the contour of the keyboards themselves. Glen Burtnik must have had his fingers in this one. The Coolest Thing, too, given its brilliantly stacked vocal harmonies, must carry some of Burtnik’s touch.
Harmonic vocal melodies sprout again in the stampede of the chorus of the song Ride, which evokes similar moods to Dirty Love before it, or the toxically catchy Physical Attraction after it. All three songs should be very welcome to all the Def Leppard fans who have been starving for years for a Def Leppard album of real, tangible substance.
By the time you fight your way to the song Tattoos & Misery, you won’t be surprised why it was picked as the lead single of the new album. It’s optimally seasoned in the arrangement. The verse-chorus combo sums up an excellent adventure of building atmosphere, with yet another extremely catchy peak in the chorus. Above all, it’s a song that connects the spirit of Trixter in the new era with the band’s classic times superbly. Steve Brown’s soloing is “extraterrestrial” and simply adds fuel to the already blazing fiery image of this record!
»New Audio Machine« is, from head to toe, a fascinating album of Trixter’s return to the living. It’s got no shortage of bombast, and even less of furious provocation and temptation to sin. It sounds freshly inspired and fully potent. It carries 11 equally strong songs that will keep you wide awake from the first to the last second of the album. The move to put together an album modeled on the old days is more than triumphant for Trixter in these new times. What undoubtedly contributed to it, too, is the fact that Trixter are today one of the few reunited melodic hard rock bands creating in their original lineup. May it stay that way for many years to come! And one more thing. With “New Audio Machine”, Trixter remain interesting to all fans of Winger as well.
Lineup
Peter Loran – vocals, guitar
Steve Brown – guitar, backing vocals
P. J. Farley – bass guitar
Mark “Gus” Scott – drums
GUEST MUSICIANS:
Glen Burtnik (Styx)
Snake Sabo (Skid Row)
Rachel Bolan (Skid Row)
Production
Trixter
Tracklist
1. Drag Me Down
2. Get On It
3. Dirty Love
4. Machine
5. Live For The Day
6. Ride
7. Physical Attraction
8. Tattoos & Misery
9. The Coolest Thing
10. Save Your Soul
11. Walk With A Stranger
