Not many people put their new album out, especially after 20+ years in the business, in four (4) different formats! But that's just what legendary female guitar icon Lita Ford has done for her latest release, Living Like A Runaway (released in North America via SPV/Steamhammer).

Ergo, Living Like A Runaway will be available in these four (4) configurations: a double LP, limited edition CD, standard CD and digital download! I know, right! And each one differs from the others re: bonus tracks not found on each of the others!

Lita has this time teamed up with producer Gary Hoey and lyricist Michael Dan Ehmig to work on Living Like a Runaway - and it shows. The production quality is crisp and clear, and Lita sounds every bit as good as she ever has. Well, after Wicked Wonderland a lot of fans had lost in her rock musicianship, but that's all been swept under the carpet now.

The first track is 'Branded,' a song that blasts out the gates from the off, it's an angry Lita that greets us. Here she vents her obviously still-pent anger on ex-husband Jim Gillette, before her force continues on with the bass-intro'd pounding of 'Hate.' A story of a 15 year-old boy who thought he was a guardian angel who was going to put the world at peace, he was gunned down before he got the chance. Next up is the guitar-led, distorted vocals of 'The Mask' (a song that could also so easily have just been called 'Jekyll & Hyde') which soon dissipates to give us a more seductive Lita rasp.

The title track is next, a slower-than-usual, melodic song it is definitely a true life act of storytelling moment for Lita. The fuzzy guitar of 'Relentless' is a great way to feed us yet another moment of lyrical truth from Lita, which for me is the best track on this album. Then comes the amplified acoustic guitar of 'Mother,' a song that finds Lita at her most tender of moments; it's also a letter to her children.

Everything gets cranked up again for 'Devil In My Head,' before the darkly orchestral 'Asylum' breaks forth. The amplified acoustic guitar comes to the fore once again on the duet 'Love To Hate You,' before the album rounds out with the imaginatively titled rocker 'A Song To Slit Your Wrists To.'

www.litafordonline.com