Lita's Back With a Runaway Rocker

Metalheads of the '80s rejoice. The always ballsy Lita Ford returns this month with "Living Like a Runaway". First up from the collection is "Branded", a frothy kiss-off to a guy who only knows surface level love. She demonstrates the fangs that made "Kiss Me Deadly" such a refreshingly honest bolt out of the blue. Her guitar is once again cranked up to eleven on the intensity scale. Listen hard enough and you can envision the unimpressed sneer. Mrs. Ford's never struck me as a woman with a high tolerance for other people's phoniness. "Branded" is far from one of those phoned-in ditties trotted out to capitalize on any nostalgia-baked hair metal age fanatics. That's a high compliment during this portion of the post millennial age where the possible final chapters for some of the supposedly indestructible '80s heyday rock bands (Quiet Riot, anyone?) may be in the process of bleeding out their last drops of ink. Time will tell if the iPod-loading public wants to come along for the entire ride but she's off to a promising start.