Hair Metal

FireHouse FireHouse

If you like crazy (future) ex-girlfriend's, then FireHouse's first album cover is for you. Some Lisa Left Eye / Andre Rison stuff going on there. FireHouse checked a lot of boxes with screechy 80s harmonized vocals, some decent riffage, some interesting chord changes, driving beats, etc.

FireHouse's debut album features hits like Don't Treat Me Bad, Love of a Lifetime, and All She Wrote. Part tasty lick, part piercing vocals, all hair metal.

Love of a Lifetime: serviceable, but not the best power ballad out there

Good to listen to when cruisin' the strip, yet not amazing enough to impress the ladies.

FireHouse album cover

A babe with a match is a babe to be feared - that's what we're taking from FireHouse's self-titled debut album cover. It leaves us with so many questions. Is she an ex-girlfriend spurned? Or, was her groupie card just pulled? We don't know.

What we do know is that just a couple of years later, Lisa "Left Eye" Lopes's torching of Andre Rison's mansion looks awfully similar.

FireHouse notes

Rock On The Radio

Minute long drums. Cool way to start the album. Eschewing the fast start, FireHouse really gives you a steady beat to start the album with Rock On The Radio. A little bit of [Def Leppard][/def-leppard/] chorus'ing in there.

All She Wrote

Sounds an awful lot like Round and Round (Ratt), and I don't hate it. Huge "All She Wrote!!!" at 2:58. Leaning on bends for most of this solo.

Totally bitchin' slow-mo stick twirl at 3:30 in the All She Wrote video. You should watch it just for that alone.

Pop quiz - are they Vidal Sassoon or Pantene Pro-V fellas?

Shake & Tumble

Some interesting riffs. Basic chorus. Decent solo with a smidge of experimentation. 80s falsetto in effect around 2:35.

Don't Treat Me Bad

The obligatory acoustic start, come in rockin' hit, replete with hand claps, pick scraping into the chrous. If someone had come out with a song like this in the last 20 years, I'd label it a work of art considering how piss poor music is today. But alas, Don't Treat Me Bad is a middlingly famous rocker from 1990 (damn, not even 80s hair metal).

Still, it's a fun song that's singable when listening to Hair Nation on SiriusXM. Basic solo, goes through the motions. Nice falsetto post solo. LOVE the ending falsetto.

Oughta Be A Law

Has a musically Ugly Kid Joe, vocally Slaughter sound to it, with a Van Halen Runaround undertone to the main riff. Come to think of it, it might have been recorded and released before all three of them. I will have to check the facts.

Not to many memorable solos, but all of them shred. Melody over notes I guess?

C.J. Snare makes the high vocals seem automatic.

Lover's Lane

A nice hard blues riff - think ZZ Top in drop d? Nice backing vocal work from the band. Love the boogie pull-offs. Much more up-tempo drum work than I was expecting.

Ooooh, solo, tell me more. I'm thoroughly interested in this solo, it's gratuitously inviting and playful.

Big Yeah! at the end. Great way to end this rocker.

Home Is Where The Heart Is

Wasn't expecting the Robert Miles intro here. Every 80s hair metal album needs a song about time passing, this is FireHouse's. One big tolerable cliche due to the guitar tone. Perry Richardson probably drinks a PBR during his 2-3 bass notes underlying that solo.

Don't Walk Away

Insert some basic 80s hair metal lyrics right here. Add a basic riff. This is the song in the set where you go get the next round of Strohs for your buddies and your Poofer.

Seasons of Change

They let Bill Leverty play an awesome piece in Seasons of Change. The world is better off having heard this track. Golf clap!

Overnight Sensation

City driving in your Firebird? Play this tune. If I grew up in Pittsburgh, this would be my jam. Don't ask why. Nice power metal sweep into some supersonic notes. Word? Didn't know they had it in them.

Followed up by some Nintendo harmonized melodic lines. I should really give the non-hits on this album some more love.

Standard lyrics for the genre.

Love of a Lifetime

This album is so much harder than this. Power ballad for sure. Top 50 Power Ballad in 80s hair metal. Whatever.

"We know that we will be together because our love is strong" - Pants! Pants! It's Fizz. Your cousin, Fizz. You know that new sound you're looking for? Well listen to this!

this is your cousin, Fizz. You know that new sound you're looking for?

Helpless

Another decent night/highway driver. High vox into solos always get me. Leverty does some damage tapping away here.

Whoa! They just cut the album on a note. You don't see that often in the 80s.

To conclude, some of these songs slipped my memory (Helpless, Overnight Sensation, etc.). I need to give this album a bit more credit. Not Hysteria credit, just a bit more than I did thusly prior.

Mötley Crüe did it harder and Poison did it sexier, but FireHouse holds their own for 48 minutes and 34 seconds.

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