siLLy puPPy Glam metal had a good run of lasting from the late 70s to the early 90s before going extinct like the dinosaurs getting hit with an asteroid called grunge. But hey, there were some fortunes made with those pink spandex and hairspray videos. While the glam rock 2.0 scene got its start with bands such as Mötley Crue, Quiet Riot, Def Leppard, Bon Jovi and Dokken, by 1986 it seems every rock musician in the universe was jumping on the bandwagon however for every band like Poison, Skid Row or Warrant that found heavy rotation with videos on MTV and selling millions of albums, there were legions of wannabes who could muster up the chops to craft decent glam metal but didn’t quite have the cojones to stand out of the pack. In other words glam metal was stuffed to the brim with mediocre bands that were great at imitating but not able to forge an original spin.

That was true for many L.A. bands on the Sunset Strip so just imagine how much harder it would be to break into the glam boyz club if you’re from Helper, Utah. That’s where the band HARD KNOX came from. It’s just a little town situated a hundred miles or so south of Salt Lake City. HARD KNOX was one of countless glam metal bands that came to the party too late and arrived well after Nirvana and Alice In Chains had started the party next door. In fact many music lovers had already left before HARD KNOX barely got started but i guess things move on a different timeline in Utah. This short-lived band released this sole album PSYCHO’S R US which if you’re old enough will see from the cover art that it’s a play on the old Toyz R Us store chain. This band consisted of Therron Arrington (vocals), Chris Gigliotti (guitar), Perry "Tazman" Murphy (guitar), Kenny Deland (bass) and Bryant Watson (drums) and due to the fact this album pretty much flopped and the band broke up, little info exists.

This is a pretty standard glam metal album that sound like many bands of the late 80s. Think Dirty Looks, Dangerous Toys and Kix and you’re totally on the right track. There is also a wink and a nod to more popular bands like Skid Row and Guns N Roses but basically HARD KNOX was the epitome of a generic glam metal band that could check off all the boxes but offered little in terms of taking the genre in a new direction. PSCYHO’S R US sounds like any old glam metal album from the 1987 timeline so not only was the band late to the party but sounded quite dated because even glam metal bands like Ratt, Extreme and Poison had moved on and branched out in different directions by 1993. This original CD is now considered a collector’s item due to the fact so few copies were made but the album found a remastered reissue in 2016 on the Divebomb label as retro glam metal has made a comeback and some of the obscure artists like HARD KNOX always sound better decades down the road than in context with the swarms of similar sounding bands that existed at the time of release.

HARD KNOX really does check off all the late 80s glam metal boxes with bluesy pop influenced guitar riffs and energetic anthems about silly banal subject matter. Just check out some of the song titles like “Feels So Good” and “You’re A Mess” and you can just picture the spandex, makeup and overly androgynous visuals including the beloved choreographic kicking scenes in videos! Despite the cliche derivative nature of PSYCHO’S R US, this is a decent glam metal album chock full of dirty guitar distortion, chunky riffs, energetic fast tempo performances and even a power ballad in the form of “Not So Bad,” however Therron Arrington’s vocals are definitely an acquired taste and none of the tracks have that extra oomf that makes any of them memorable especially when compared to classic albums of the same genre. In the end not only was it too little too late for HARD KNOX but for me this is just an average run of the mill glam metal album that in my book doesn’t really deserve more than a listen or two. OK but nothing more.