Wildheart - No Love (Own Label)

It’s rare – very rare, actually, that your not-so-humble interlocutor is impressed by ‘new’ hair metal bands. Indeed, aside from the stellar new Crazy Lixx album, I’m really struggling to think of any young guns who might sound impressive enough to dissuade me from simply putting an old Dokken album on the stereo and having done with it. At least I was until I got this little piece of Manna from the metal Gods (masquerading today as Sentinel Daily Editor Scott Adams) – the new album from Belgian hopefuls Wildheart…

Leaving aside for the moment the fact that their vocalist is called Farty, I have to reiterate that this is quite frankly the best album of it’s kind I’ve heard in a long, long time. Mastered by Erik Martensson of Eclipse/W.E.T. fame for maximum rock n’roll impact, No Love sounds like a million dollars, not least because this is a band that has mastered it’s craft and then some. Standout track Rumours is utterly titanic, built on a great sing-it-shout-it chorus refrain and some fabulous, stinging lead playing from guitarists Foxx and Juice. And then of course there’s Farty.

Quite remarkably, Farty doesn’t stink, rather coming on like a vocal deadringer for a young Danny Vaughan at his most vital; he stamps his authority all over the album, but for he and the rest of the band Rumours is where it all comes together best. Truly this is the sound of world beaters in waiting.

Elsewhere Dutch Courage is as exciting a tribute to ‘the booze’ as I’ve heard in a while, whilst the title track would have burnt up the US charts were we still living in 1989. There are a couple of missteps, most notably the clunky closer Tonight We Rock, but it’s easy to forget about those whilst you’re happily splitting your trousers doing straddle jumps off the sofa whilst listening to the strutting Good To Be Bad.

Make no mistake – Wildheart are a new force to be reckoned with in the world of melodic metal, and No Love shows just what a violent upward trajectory they look to be on – essential listening for all fans of heavy hair metal…