9 / 10 - If you have missed the 80's style melodic hard rock and AOR releases with the great hooks and melodies you don't need to look any further. Wig Wam is your saviors. The band features musicians from your loved 80's scandi hard rock scene in guitarist Trond Holter (Dream Police / Evenrude), bassist Bernt Jansen (Artch) and drummer Oystein "Bobby" Andersen (Sha-Boom). Vocalist Age Steen Nilsen is lesser known, but was once fronting the band Heads N' Tails. So, what to expect from these guys? Pure 80's melodic hard rock the scandi way in the vein of Bon Jovi, Sha-Boom and Evenrude with a touch of the 70's rockers Kiss, Sweet and (early) Alice Cooper. The album opens (after the intro-track) with a rocker with it's self-ironic title "The Best Song In The World", a great track. But I would personally put the albums last song "No More Living On Lies" as the opening track as I think it's better suited than "The Best Song...". Great guitar riffs and hooks that would've blown away many of the top 10 hits back in the 80's. Then you get the Bon Jovi/Def Leppard-style "Crazy Things", a great first choice for a single. This song was used during the Norwegian finals for the European song contest (Wig Wam came on 3rd place, not bad or what?). Other highly mentionable songs on this great album is the ballad "Tell Me Where To Go" which is much in the vein of early Alice Cooper (or did Alice steel this song a rewrote it into his song "Desperado"?). "Bless The Night" and "Mine All Mine" are great uptempo rockers while "Out Of Time" is more laidback. I could have sworn I've heard "Mine All Mine" before, but it's penned by the guys here (maybe someone else has (also) stolen this song?). The guys have "stolen" a song in Spice Girls' Melanie C's "I Turn To You" and done a great rocker out of it. A great album that needs to be heard by any fans of melodic hard rock!

Review by Per Erik Jansen, Rock of Norway
www.rockofnorway.com