Chez Kane‘s self-titled debut for Frontiers Music isn’t just the raucous tribute to eighties rock and metal that you’ve been reading about all over the interwebs these past few weeks… it is, without exaggeration, the finest raucous tribute to eighties rock and metal you’ll hear in a long, long, long time.

Quite how this has come about is anyone’s guess since Chez (who I’m proud to report is Welsh, just like your humble reviewer) and producer/writer/all-round-svengali character Danny Rexon (you’ll remember him from his efforts in Crazy Lixx, of course) can’t possibly have a combined age that equals Kiss‘ Lick It Up opus, but there you go… just wallow in the magnificence of it all and praise whichever deity you sacrifice to that they have is all I can say…

From the opening Survivoresque strains of Better Than Love to the closing notes of last song Dead End Street, this album is a masterclass of AOR/melodic hard rock. Kane, whose vocal style most closely resembles Vixen‘s Janet Gardner in her pomp, has a wonderful voice, and the sort of technique the stumblebums who turn up on Idol and Got Talent shows would ransom their own grandmothers for. At times – the monstrous Ball And Chain, for instance, those of a certain age will be reminded of Cher‘s self-titled AOR tour de force from 1987. I’m not kidding – the girl’s that good…

The stadium-devouring stomper All Of It is another spine-tingling highlight, raunchy guitars straight out of the early eighties Kiss playbook meld with a huge chorus that Kane simply chews up and spits out with a style that’s all her own yet can’t help remind you of all the greats that have gone before in some measure. It’s infectious, and it’s going to make strong men in their late forties weep with nostalgic joy when they hear it, you mark my words… (is this your way of telling us the album’s made you cry? – Ed).

And then there’s the two singles, both of which I’m hoping you’ve heard by now but it not… well, Kiss (that name again) fans are going to lose their collective bundles over Rocket on the Radio whilst those who live on the AOR tip will be lapping up Too Late For Love as soon as it makes contact with their ears. Kane’s performance on the former can only be described as wicked awesome…

Of course Rexon deserves an awful lot of credit for this record. His skills have created a vehicle for Kane that simply couldn’t have been bettered, even if Desmond Child and Diane Warren had been drafted in to take care of the whoah-oh-ohs and the lavishly over-the-top choruses. The attention to detail here, the effort taken to evoke a time between 1987-89 is utterly spellbinding – and totally successful. At this point in time I can’t ever see a day in the future when this record won’t be played on one device or another in the Strickmann car/house/garden shed. Mrs Strickmann has been duly warned…

Seriously, though, if you look back fondly on those days at the end of the eighties as a happier, more carefree time, then this is the album you need to take you back. You’re all gonna love it, I can fully assure you…

Chez Kane releases on March 12th.