Canada and Rock and Roll – when you think of that what comes to mind? There’s such a rich musical history in the home of our our Commonwealth cousins from Rush to Lee Aaron and Triumph to Bryan Adams and BTO. I reckon I could go on for half and our without even getting into the wealth of new bands out there. At the moment though there’s one name on my mind – The Wild!
The Wild’s new long player is ten tracks of no nonsense Rock and Roll from the Bluesy Garage Rock opener ‘Bad News’ which instantly has me reaching for names like Junkyard, all the way through to the lone ballad here ‘Gasoline’ which closes.
In between you get the Buckcherry feel and groove of ‘Crazy For You’ and a slew of other great songs that may even make you feel like that Buckcherry debut did all the way back last Century. This is an album with real feel and some lovely touches though that set it apart from most. The guitar solo in ‘Crazy..’ just for starters is sublime and the the way the (Stonesy) backing vocals come in and sit behind it is crazy good.
Elsewhere ‘Nothing Good Comes Easy’ comes as a salute to AC/DC and it’s bloody good, as is the ‘tear it up’ Southern Boogie of ‘High Speed’ or the wonderful Southern Rock Blues-fueled of ‘King Of This Town’ which has me reaching for that Junkyard comparison again. I love Junkyard. I love The Wild!
The spiky, punky title track ‘Still Believe in Rock and Roll’ again brings Buckcherry to mind but with a wonderful soaring chorus that they make their own. It’s an uplifting anthem that would sit in that prime real estate of track one on side two of a vinyl album. The quality so far is astonishing.
‘Playing With Fire’ the single follows, and I’m sure many will have heard the infectious AC/DC riff and almost Georgia Satellite vibe that rises off it into the ether before the gang vocals are introduced to smooth the edges.
‘Young Rebels’ is the ‘melting pot’ song here where even a little Bowie style Pop and a country-lite vibe is thrown in with the gritty Social Distortion Punky Rock, it kind of reminds me of current bands like Germany’s wonderful ‘The New Roses’ are heading and The Wild do it equally as well.
We close out with a couple of crackers too – the hyper-swing and rolling rock and roll groove of ‘Goin’ To Hell’ and the closer ‘Gasoline’ which I must admit came as a surprise. If ever an album didn’t need a ‘traditional’ ballad it’s this one. But you don’t get too many six minute ballads these days and this I’d argue is far from traditional sounding like Steve Earle when it opens up and bursting and bristling here and there for accent. It’s a song that also allows Dylan Villain to really show off his pipes. It’s also one of the very best here.
When we step out of isolation you should all be listening to the new saviours of Rock and Roll! We believe!
