Reckless Love was formed by ex Crash Diet vocalist, Ollie, and it shows.
That said, the album starts out much poppier, probably closer to
Wigwam with a definite influence from sixties' Chinn&Chapman bands like The Sweet, before riding off tangentially on a much heavier, harder beast.
Then returning, suitably chaste, like they feel guilty they left in the first place.
Initially, there's a creeping fear that it's all going to be generic, contemporary glam rock, aping any one of a dozen new pretenders, with the choruses rented from gang vocals to go.
The overly repetitive
'Feel My Heat' and the punky '
One More Time' are the two prime culprits, opening the album in a welter of recycled glam rock clichés.
Then suddenly they leave all that homogenised stuff behind. on tracks 3 and 4,
'Badass' and
'Love Machine' respectively, the latter clearly a tribute, ahem, to Joan Jett - they mount a revolution, like they suddenly got some lead in their pencil from listening to The
Backyard Babies and / or the mighty 'Crue. These are two immense tracks. Album standouts by a considerable margin.
Just as quickly we're back to Sweet and
Wigwam territory on
'Beautiful Bomb' and the powerful, driven
'Romance', both with an opaque, but very welcome radio friendly,
AOR influence.
Quite conceivably,
'Sex' and
'Back To Paradise' could've been plucked from some eighties' radio station playlist. Both ricochet around a hazy swirl of sonic references that include Johnny Hates Jazz, Bryan Adams and Icehouse.
In fact, throughout the album the stylistic pendulum swings back and forth, touching on different genres within an eighties timeframe. Of course, it's always 5 o'clock somewhere, so fans of these genres and sub genres will find something to love.
At the very least,
Reckless Love sound like they're having fun mastering different art forms - with the soaring
AOR of second to last track
'Wild Touch' turning out to be one of the best things here.
Problem is of course, everybody likes to pigeonhole the music. Maybe once
Reckless Love settle into a clear direction home they will be appreciated, as they are clearly a talented bunch.
The next album will be the one, I've no doubt. But this'll do for now.
Written by
Brian Sunday, March 21, 2010
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