SHIRAZ LANE: "For Crying Out Loud"

Rating: RRR
Label: Frontiers 2016
Review by: Urban "Wally" Wallstrom

Oh... for crying out loud!!! At first glance or if you prefer spin, the young guns of Shiraz Lane are coming across as way too eager, over the top, and just dying to meet ya'. Tora Tora! Attack Attack! And on top of everything high-pitch (vocals) banshee screams in the vein of The Darkness meet any Mickey Mouse on drugs wannabee of the eighties [read Nitro and Jim Gillette - the best Lita Ford could get?]. Let's blame it on Yngwie 'God' Malmsteen and his famous last words, 'how can less be more? surely more is more'. These guys are definitely MORE of the whole she-bang including hairdos, tore-up jeans, screaming guitars, posing and prancing like hard rock stars of the eighties.

If you can get past the Mark Slaughter on laughing gas vocals (and I know that's a big IF to many including yours truly), you're actually in for a small Treat, and yes, I prefer this over the new snooze album by the Swedes. Sure. Always borderline wacky and daft, however, the compositions and arrangements speaks volume of fun and disturbing hair metal. I kid ya' not, these Finns are disturbing in so many different ways, it's not even fun(ny). But c'mon, that's what hard rock is all about. You're not supposed to record the sterile and clean, old-fart album, without a single note of attitude or soul. You can definitely tell that the five of Shiraz Lane are hungry for success and looking to take on the world.

Critic? there's no need for Hannes Kett to keep pushing for those high notes all of the time, since he's clearly the most impressive hard rock vocalist to come out of Finland as of lately. I'm sure he'll learn how to keep control of the pipes and power in the following years. They're still looking for the perfect song material though. Final verdict: Sheer dumb-fun hair-metal and glam. wham-bam thank you mam'. Have a go at this if you fancy the wacky mix of TheDarkness/Nitro/Slaughter vocals and music 'ala Nitro/Vain/Darkness/ and the debut album by Slik Toxic.