In a desperate attempt to make some quick cash, Lita Ford pulls out her cauldron and eye of newt to revive the hulking golem that was pop metal. Filling the room with that witch’s brew steam, she emerges from the mist with a beast that mostly succeeds.

For the ’80s hags, this album will be total gold. It kicks off with two reelin’ power ballads, “Where Will I Find My Heart Tonight” and “Killing Kind.” The latter would fit nicely on Bat Out of Hell II, complete with Meat Loaf clone duet that screams overblown. Later, Lita plows through all your favorite Ratt and Motley Crue rewrites once again, with “Rotten to the Core” digging it’s talon-like hooks into your brain immediately.

Lita almost tricks you into thinking it’s 1988 again, but not before Time Capsule gets bogged down by general goofiness. “Mr. Corruption” has a sleazy fake arena mix, with space-jam drum fills and a weird, bloated guitar sound. The instrumental jack off “Little Wing” is best skipped; anyone who’s actually picked up a guitar will laugh at the incredibly basic blues scales Lita trips through. It’s immediately followed by the similar solo showcase “On the Fast Track”, an utterly worthless exercise on an album otherwise filled with real songs.

So yeah, this is better than most Frontiers Records drivel, but worse than that Van Halen song off the film Twister. The one where the CG cow flies by.

C+