Wig Wam - 'Wall Street' (frontiers) 4/5

Now I'm convinced that somewhere in Scandinavia there is a big machine where talented musicians are thrown in one end and great glam rock bands come out the other, over the past year we've had Crazy Lixx, Royal Republic and many others hitting  us up with great new albums; now we have Oslo band Wig Wam with their fourth studio album Wall Street.Now if you think you have come across this lot before, then your probably either a fan of Scan-glam or your a regular viewer of the Eurovision Song Contest, this lot represented Norway in 2005 with a track called In My Dreams, a song that was number 1 in Norway for a long long time and has made them household names in their homeland.

Anyway enough of the history lesson, whats this album like? Well there are 11 tracks on offer here and over all its pretty good. The opening two cuts Wall Street and OMG (I Wish I Had A Gun) are both balls out rockers that take a swipe lyrically at cash culture, bankers, the state of the word economy. Heavy? Nah not really, its all tongue in cheek highly headbangable fun stuff. Then we have a quick change of gear for the highly quirky Victory Is Sweet with a huge chorus, children's choir, orchestral backing and massive sing-a-long hooks. And so it continues... I'm not going to give a track by track breakdown, but take it from me its all good stuff. Other highlights include The Sweet sounding The Bigger The Better, the lighter waver of a ballad in the form of Tides Will Turn (again look out for a massive hook), the dark and driven One Million Enemies and the sleaze filled sex out of Try My Body On (with the biggest hook of all!!) Not really a weak moment on show, even the aforementioned ballad isn't as bad as I thought it would be.

Now if there is any justice in the world, Wig Wam would be international superstars with albums like this under their belts, but we all know that justice and the music biz don't exactly walk hand in hand, but  have no doubt that Wall Street will at the very least become a bit of fave with those who like to seek out the good music that lays beyond the stuff served up on mainstream radio.

Pretty Damn Good

For fans of... L.A.Guns, Crash Street Kids, The Sweet, Ratt, Crazy Lixx.....

L.A.Guns - 'Hollwood Forever (Dead Line) 4.5/5

Sadly there is a tendency with some bands to split and reform in several different incarnations, and then spend as much time suing the backsides off each other as they do touring and recording. Just like Saxon, Great White, Wishbone Ash etc, glam legends L.A.Guns have also found themselves going down this route. Now I aint gonna let this review turn into a 'for fuck sake' rant. I'll just point out  that this version of L.A.Guns is the Phil Lewis fronted version and get on with it.

Now this album, the latest offering, is a pretty damn good one. It kicks off with a rather storming title track that lays out the stall for the rest of the 13 tracks to follow. We get the rather interesting Eel Pie (a reference to Mr Lewis East London roots?) with its cutting insight into the music business, the big an brooding Burn with its huge hook laden chorus, the rock and boogie bang out of Vine Street Shimmy with its glorious sleazy chorus riff, a fantastic slow and heavy blues workout in the form of Dirty Black Night - which features some stunning guitar work from Stacey Blades and the headlong drive of Venus Bomb which is an air guitar classic in the making...In fact there isn't really a duff track on offer, even the slower cuts like Underneath the Sun, are sleaze filled late night drinking anthems, that manage to stay ell clear of the old power ballad cliche.

Phil Lewis is a vocalist I've always had a lot of time for, after all I'm old enough to have seen him fronting both Girl and Torme back in the early 80's long before he upped sticks to California, and I'm glad to say he still sounds as sleazy, powerful, in your face and convicted as he did on Girl's Sheer Greed opus way back when, add in the fact that Stacey Blades does some of the best guitar work of his career on this one and the rhythm section of Scott Griffin and Steve Riley are as tight as Anne Widdecombes rubber bondage cat suit and you've got a great band writing and performing some first class hard rock

In short, this is a fantastic record and a worthy addition to the catalogue of a great band.

Well worth checking out

For fans of.. Poison, Girl, Guns And Roses, Ratt and classic hard rock and hair metal.

Crazy Lixx - 'Riot Avenue' (frontiers) 5/5

Swedish sleaze fueled rockers Crazy Lixx have been together since 2002 and along with the likes of Sister and Royal Republic are one of the big players in the glam side of Sweden's current classic rock revival. This is their third album.

Now I've been living with this one for a couple of weeks now, and this is the fourth time I've sat down to review it, but I've been having problems with this album, its so damn good and infectious, every time I've played it I've ended up head banging around the flat like a demented teenager, air guitars, the works. So this time I've got the girlfriend to tie me down in front of the computer and beat me with a whip until I've finished writing this one up.

As you can guess I'm like this one big time. From the up tempo double whammy opening of Whiskey, Foxtrot, Tango and Youngblood through to the almost southern boogie closing epic of Only The Dead Know, this album just drips class. It's like all your fave glam and sleaze rock acts rolled into one glorious eleven song package. You get the the classic riffing of Ratt (Youngblood), the mob yell choruses of Poison (Fire It Up), the late night sleaze of Dogs D'Amour (Downtown), the strut and swagger of Skid Row (Sweet, Bad & Beautiful), the full works and its formed into a down and dirty whole that makes this one of the best glam rock / hair metal albums of the past 10 years at least.

I really cannot praise this album enough, the performances here are spot on. Danny Rexon's vocals are distinctive, direct and remind me somewhere of the great Sebastian Bach (Skid Row), Guitarist Andy Dawson is a rare talent, a glam metal guitarist who knows exactly how to read a song and knows when to go OTT and when to rein himself in. Chuck in the rhythm section of Loke Rivano (bass - now sadly departed from the band) and Joél Cirera (drums) who are as tight as a ducks chuff and as driving as Finnish Rally driver in an old group B car, and you do have a band who knows not only how to rock out like a bastard but also how to bring the best out in each other.

In short this is a great album and with glam rock getting a new audience thanks to the likes of the Black Veil Brides,  an outfit that really could go places.

A True Classic
 
For fans of... Moltey Crue, Ratt, Kiss, Skid Row, Black Veil Brides, Sister etc....

Bi-Polar Sluts - "Out-4-Dinner" (New Model Label) 5/5

There has been a lot of good stuff coming out of Italy of late and now we have the latest offering in the form of Parma based hard rockers Bi-Polar Sluts, with this rather impressive debut offering.

Drawing its starting point from the likes of AC/DC, Guns And Roses, Moltey Crue this album of 14 tracks (well 12 plus a short intro and outro) has to be perhaps the best platter of hard and heavy balls out rock and roll Italy has produced since their label mates Speedjackers gave us the impressive 'Favourite Sons' opus a year or so back.  There are no pretentions here, just great rock and roll, cuts like Aperiti've, Keep Screaming and Never Trust A Woman just steam roller from the speakers and set your motor neurones slam dancing around your cranium.

Vocalist Mike Molinari has a remarkable voice, sounding like Bon Scott, Axle Rose and Brett Michaels rolled into one, he can carry a tune perfectly and yell and growl with the best of em. Then we have the twin guitar attack of Guix Morini and Federico Arcuri; here are two guys who are masters of their craft, swapping riffs like the good 'uns they are and covering all bases from the Sweet Child Of Mine style chiming riffs on Something To Kill The Pain and the pseudo classical acoustic approach to Sammy's Backyard, to the balls to the wall drive and crunch of Treat You Bad, all taken in their pretty musical stride. Add in the ducks buttocks tight rythym section of Joe Forlini and Paulo Casali (the latter formerly with Italian hardcore legends Raw Power) and you have a band who can be described as truly great performing an album to match.

Highlights? well this album is really one long highlight, but if I had to pick a fave moment or two it would be the impressive single Keep Screaming, the low down and sleazy Vodka and Lime and the high octaine rock out of Listen To Me.

In short this is one damn fine album and one that will go a long way to putting both Bi-Polar Sluts and Italian rock in general firmly on the world music map.

For fans of... Speedjackers, Guns and Roses, Poison, AC/DC, Black Veil Brides.....

The Dirty Youth - 'Red Light Fix' (RMR Records) 4.5/5

I've been looking forward to getting my hands on a copy of this debut album from South Wales female fronted sleazy hard rockers The Dirty Youth, ever since the lead single Fight arrived at BCFM central a month or so back; and at last Red Light Fix is here...

And all I can say is 'wow'. This album is right up my musical alley. Ten cuts of pure down and dirty, greasy lowlife sleaze metal that has really put a smile on my face after a pretty stressful week. We kick off with Rise Up, a tasty cut of prime rawk that starts off sounding like Within Temptations slutty younger sister at chucking out time and resolves into a glorious air punching anthem for our time 'Rise up join the revolution' great stuff. Having laid out their stall from the off The Dirty Youth carry on very much in the same vein Tracks like the fantastic drinking anthem Requiem For The Drunk, the highly headbangable Ellen - with its intro riff that wouldn't sound out of place on a classic Saxon album, the sleazy bump and grind of the title track and the dark and brooding Promises all flash past in one glorious stream of very highly enjoyable high energy blur of first rate power rock until all to soon you reach the climactic and anthemic This Is For You a track that does indeed mark TDY as the natural successors to the late lamented SAL as maybe the UKs premier female fronted rockers.

This album is commercial as it is possible to get without loosing any of the fire and attitude of the underground. It is played to perfection, well produced, catchy as a seasonal cold (but without the headaches, snotty snot boxes and sore throats) and over all one of the best rock albums of the year so far.

TDY are already a band that are making waves; a show stopping performance at this years Download festival and the UK's rock press and broadcasters rightly getting behind the Fight single, has already marked this lot out as one of the cream of the crop of the UK rocks next generation, and Red Light Fix is an album that will only go to boost their career onto bigger and even better things.

Very Highly Recommended.

For fans of... SAL, Doro, Obsessive Compulsive, Rock In Your Pocket etc...