Author: Peter Podbrežnik
Artist: It Bites
Label: Just For Kicks Music
Release: 2007
Rating: 3.5/5
British art rock oddballs It Bites, who first made a name for themselves in the late eighties with albums like “The Big Lad In The Windmill” (1987), “Once Aorund The World” (1988) and “Eat Me In St. Louis” (1989), which served up their unique blend of progressive rock and pop, are back with us again. Back then, It Bites were a young band that wowed people with their very own magic, a harmonious balancing act between outstanding virtuosity, melodic sense and witty sonic touches, which set them apart from most of the neo-prog and first-generation prog acts. In the 80s those acts started winning over a younger generation by adapting to the pop trends of the day, a generation that grew up with the newborn MTV, which was suddenly making stars out of some almost written-off legends again. At the end of the eighties, with Marillion and Peter Gabriel and the band’s other stylistic role models enjoying their biggest commercial success, it looked like It Bites would be filling stadiums with ease and become one of the hottest bands of the early 90s. But despite a legion of fiercely loyal fans, the real commercial breakthrough never came. When core member Francis Dunnery, the charismatic singer and guitar virtuoso, decided to start a solo career in 1990, It Bites’ fate was sealed for several years. In the mid-90s, when the rest of the band joined Dunnery on stage during one of his shows in London, they started planning a revival of the original lineup again, but it fell through because of Dunnery’s packed schedule and his life in the US. After the renewed interest in art rock, the other members decided to carry on without him and invited John Mitchell into the ranks: a distinctive guitar master, occasional singer and currently a workaholic without equal in the modern prog scene, who on top of his duties with his main band Arena is also involved with bands and projects like Blind Ego, The Urbane, Kino and the John Wetton band, and was also a member of the original lineup of the hot modern neo-prog act Frost*.
With Mitchell in Dunnery’s spot, they went out on a successful summer tour in 2006 alongside the cult Scottish neo-prog band Pallas. This recording, which comes from their winter tour that same year, shows a freshly revived band, hungry for new challenges and full of youthful drive brought in by the new frontman. Mitchell pulls off the extremely tough job of filling in for some fairly demanding vocal parts with surprising success, though Dunnery’s charisma will be very hard to replace in the studio. His instrumental chops as one of the most in-demand guitarists around are of course beyond question, and not only does he consistently nail Dunnery’s original passages and solos, he also adds a few improvisations of his own. The other three, original members, led by keyboard virtuoso John Beck (who’s also Mitchell’s partner in crime in Kino), whose arrangements account for the lion’s share of the original magic, are still in superb form, I’d say, and it seems like they never split up at all. As expected, It Bites play most of their best material from all three albums mentioned above. Even the opener “Kiss Like Judas” (Once Around The World) sounds like the band never stopped playing live. Mitchell shines especially confidently on the material from “Eat Me In St. Louis”, which has the biggest share of guitar passages of all their albums, as on the emotional power ballad “Leaving Without You”, the ambient treat “The Ice Melts Into Water” and the prog pop classic “Still To Young To Remember”, probably their best-known piece, which also came out as a single. Vocally he’s a bit less convincing on tracks like the infectiously erotic scorcher “I Got You Eating Out Of My Hand” (The Big Lad In Windmill) and the burlesque “Plastic Dreamer” (Once Around The World) , which are total Dunnery babies and demand an extra dose of vocal charisma. There’s also a brand-new piece in the set, the solid power ballad “Playground”, which gives a partial answer to what the new sound of It Bites will be. They combine Mitchell’s recognizable, razor-sharp guitar passages, typical of his main band Arena, with their traditional, spacey keyboard sound and dramatic instrumental transitions. To give you a better idea, I’d say it’s a piece that will appeal to all fans of Collins-era Genesis and some of the work of Peter Gabriel and Ray Wilson, both former singers of that band. Perhaps Mitchell’s finest moment and one of the highlights of the recording is the 10-plus-minute, neo-prog-leaning “Old Man And The Angel” (Once Around The World), where together with the rest of the band he manages to conjure up the original magic convincingly, along with some pretty demanding multi-part vocal harmonies. Well, if I had to pick the one highlight of the recording, I’d probably go for one of their most beautiful ballads, “You’ll Never Go To Heaven” (The Big Lad In Windmill), where Mitchell’s singing proves he doesn’t lack heart as he glides between dreamy orchestral arrangements and subtle guitar passages. The closer, the pop metal “Calling All The Heroes” (The Big Lad In The Windmill), which shows where some power metal arrangements come from, couldn’t be more fitting. What surprised me almost the most, besides the decent performance of most of the material, the excellent production and the chemistry that clearly works between the members, is how wholeheartedly and energetically the crowd joins in with the band. Besides the roaring ovations at the intros and endings of most songs, the crowd sings some of the choruses back so passionately you’d think It Bites were regulars on modern radio charts and not a nearly forgotten cult band that the stars were never overly kind to.
After so many dry years with not a peep about any new It Bites release, this live recording is a tasty appetizer ahead of their upcoming new studio album. “When The Lights Go Down” has already given some partial answers about what we can expect from the band in the future. Above all, it answered the question of whether we need to mourn Dunnery too much, since Mitchell has proven a worthy replacement and justified the trust the other members put in him. It’ll be interesting to see how his ideas shape their new studio sound, and whether, given his (over)busy schedule with all those other bands, he’ll be able to motivate the others to record a modern album with that unmistakable It Bites sound. Let’s let ourselves be surprised, and in the meantime, we can drool over this excellent, nostalgia-stirring recording.
Lineup
John Mitchell – vocals, guitar
Dick Nolan – bass guitar
John Beck – keyboards, acoustic guitar, backing vocals
Bob Dalton – drums, backing vocals
Production
John Mitchell & John Beck
Track list
1. Kiss Like Judas (5.40)
2. I Got You Eating Out Of My Hand (6.08)
3. Plastic Dreamer (4.14)
4. Leaving Without You (5.52)
5. Playground (5.27)
6. Old Man And The Angel (10.27)
7. The Ice Melts Into Water (7.23)
8. Still Too Young To Remember (5.58)
9. You’ll Never Go To Heaven (7.11)
10. Calling All The Heroes (8.36)
Album length: 66:56
