Shy - Once Bitten...Twice Shy (Neat Metal Records) 1983
1. Deep Water (4:33)
2. Take It All the Way (4:52)
3. Give Me a Chance (3:56)
4. Think of Me (4:11)
5. Tonight (3:10)
6. Chained By Desire (4:11)
7. Reflections (5:12)
8. Once Bitten, Twice Shy (3:48)
BONUS TRACKS
9. All on You (4:38)
10. Throwing It All Away (3:16)
Shy are an English melodic rock band that features vocalist Tony Mills, who would go on to sing with Norwegian metal masters TNT. "Once Bitten..." was the band's debut album. This CD reissue is the Neat label, known for releases by bands like Raven, Blitzkrieg and Venom. Shy, however, are no where near the spastic heavy metal of those bands. In fact, it wouldn't be far off to call "Once Bitten..." AOR. However, songs like "Chained by Desire" and "Deep Water" have a very British hard rock sound with a bit of a Thin Lizzy influence. The album is crudely produced, which probably saved it from completely losing it's edge. The guitars are a bit more out-front of the mix, though the keys play an important role in each and every song. Without the keys, this album would probably have been considered a hard rock classic. With the keys, the songs lose that heavy edge. This is especially true of bonus track "All On You", a keyboard dominated ballad that comes off more as pop song than a rock 'n' roll ballad. By modern standards "Once Bitten..." is the cheesiest of cheesy, but remembering that this album was released in 1983, it's actually pretty cutting edge for it's time.
The Japanese pressing of "Once Bitten...Twice Shy" contains two bonus tracks and two booklets, one in Japanese, one in English. The booklet has a fairly extensive biography and lyrics.
Shy England - Misspent Youth (MCA) 1990
1. "Give it All You
Got" (5:22)
2. "Burnin' Up" (4:21)
3. "Pub" (:14)
4. "Money" (3:23)
5. "After the Love is Gone" (4:12)
6. "Never Trust a Stranger" (5:12)
7. "Broken Heart" (4:45)
8. "Shake the Nations" (3:51)
9. "When You Need Someone" (3:59)
10. "Love on the Line" (3:23)
11. "Make My Day" (3:29)
12. "Encore" (:28)
Yet another CD in a long
line of pop/glam metal bands that came out in the early 90's, a couple years
to late for the hair metal explosion. Shy remind me of early Slaughter with trace amounts of TNT and British bands
like Def Leppard. By no means am
I saying that this disc is groundbreaking or at the top of the heap, but I just
really enjoy this type of music. It's heavy, yet commercially accessible. As
with most bands of this genre, the guitar work is outstanding. It was almost
mandatory of a pop metal band that you had a guitar player who studied at the
Eddie Van Halen school of shred guitar.
This certainly the case with Shy England. I also am a fan of the helium ingested
vocals. In this case, Tony Mills is not quite as high as Mark Slaughter or Jim
Gillette, but not far off either. The production on this disc is a little thin.
With a beefier guitar sounds and a bit more bass in the overall mix, this disc
would have been even better.
Pretty sure
"Misspent Youth" is out of print, but it's relatively easy to find and usually
sells pretty cheap.
Related Collections:
TNT
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