LITA FORD

A few years ago I was on the horn with Lita Ford, who was resurfacing from her Caribbean hideaway with a new album and tour. Lita was cooking dinner as we chatted and I really took to the optimism emitting from her voice. Her excitement of getting back on the road after a long layoff from the rock scene was superseded only by the novelty of having her sons along for the ride. They were accompanying her and her then-husband and collaborative partner, ex-NITRO vocalist Jim Gillette. I also spoke with Gillette for a few nutty minutes while Lita served dinner. Together Lita and Jim had assembled a perplexing and brackish bit of industrial sex crunk ala THE GENITORTURERS and LORDS OF ACID, "Wicked Wonderland". Entertaining in spots, it still thudded more than throbbed, despite being based on their own fetishes, of which I was told a couple personally by Jim over the phone. Almost nobody bought into the concept, yet my impressions of the former couple told me something that was ultimately not the case.

Of course, you know what happened to Tom Cruise and Nicole Kidman after throwing their corporal intimacies for public consumption in "Eyes Wide Shut". Sadly enough, history repeats itself here. It's become common knowledge Lita and Jim have since split up in a nasty divorce resulting in mutual enmity and a reported physical attack upon Lita by her own sons.

In light of her forced estrangement, Lita Ford returns this year with a back-to-basics pop metal album that will easily appeal to anyone who appreciated 1988's "Lita", "Stiletto" or "Dangerous Curves". At least in the opening tracks, there's even some of the snarl ringing through her 1983 debut, "Out For Blood".

"Living Like a Runaway" may not elevate Lita Ford back to where she was when she scored huge with "Kiss Me Deadly", "Back to the Cave" and her power pop duet with Ozzy Osbourne, "Close My Eyes Forever". Those days are gone, yet Lita today still carries a fire in her fingertips on "Living Like a Runaway" as she does in her heart, stoked to combustion by a tarnished romance. Lita thus wastes no opportunity to open the window to her brutal breakup from Jim Gillette on "Branded", "Devil in My Head", "The Mask", "Relentless" and "Luv 2 Hate U".

At least during the opening six cuts of "Living Like a Runaway", Lita Ford ropes her listeners in with some generally loud numbers. Lita's riff selections are cued straight out of Sunset Strip circa 1986 and for the most part, they work. "Branded" is a stamping, accusatory opener, while the toothy and banging "Hate" keeps the album on an early heavy drive. These two songs represent Lita in an unchained frame of mind and they engage accordingly. Even with the suspect electro pulses introducing "The Mask", the song asserts itself with an edgy sludge kick.

The title track carries a softer pop swing in which Lita describes her flashpoint teenage years leading her to both fame and phobia in THE RUNAWAYS. She smartly follows this almost-sweet cut with her up-tempo motivation rocker, "Relentless". While the song structure replicates "The Mask" and even the less-thrilling "Luv 2 Hate U", "Relentless" is an audience pleaser based on Lita's sorrow and her will to heal through music.

It's when "Mother" comes along when "Living Like a Runaway" hits its full impact as Lita pours her very soul into it. She avows her long-distance love for her sons, whom she maintains have been brainwashed by her ex. Without the substance of "Mother" being an open love letter (albeit a dark one with references to being there for her kids until going six feet under),the song would've been a straightforward hard rock ballad woven from Hairball Heaven. As it is, "Mother" becomes the most poignant moment of "Living Like a Runaway".

From there, the album shuffles more than sprints for the finish line. It's as if Lita gassed herself out through the first six songs before spreading a handful of so-so filler cuts that includes a bizarre and unsettling cover of "A Song to Slit Your Wrist By", from Nikki Sixx's old side project 58. The remaining four tunes hardly measure up to the first six, albeit it sure is gnarly hearing Lita decorate the entire album with some of the finest batch of solos she's pulled off since "Out for Blood" and "Dancin' On the Edge".

Co-written and co-produced by Gary Hoey (also a multi-instrumentalist and backup singer on the album),"Living Like a Runaway" is awkward to listen to on the first couple of spins for its inherent odium Most of the songs do begin to stick upon repeat plays, however. Had the remainder of the album matched up to the strength of the opening half, this could've been one of Lita's finest hours, RUNAWAYS material inclusive. Lita has at least redeemed herself of the sweaty S&M debacle that was "Wicked Wonderland" and her exorcising here is compelling enough. Above all, "Living Like a Runaway" is an honest stepping stone album that we can only hope evolves into something spectacular the next round.