Band : Wild Champagne
Album title : Fire And Water
Label : STF Records
Distributor : M-System.de - cms gmbh.com
Release date : 26/03/2010
Release : CD

Yet another group that's already been around some time, yet I'd never heard of them before. It turns out this Fire And Water album is already their second album, their first album being Time which was released some years ago by the since then defunct label Long Island Records.

When I played this CD for the first time, I didn't quite know what to make of it. Did I like it or not? So I decided to play it a few more times, and after a while it grew on me. Actually I started liking it a lot. Being a mix between eighties Metal and Hard Rock, but with a stronger penchant towards the Metal side than the Hard Rock side, this is something special. At times it reminded me of some of the more obscure bands you could find on the compilation albums Neat Records released in the eighties. Obscure bands, of which some of them later grew to (a little) fame, like Grim Reaper, Savage etc. Just like some of these obscure eighties bands, Wild Champagne is only a trio, but boy, can they make a lot of noise. These guys show their competence at playing an instrument. What they cannot be blamed of is their song titles, I mean they're not very original you know, but at least they're decent songs. A shame maybe that we're now 2010. Were this released 15 or 20 years ago they might have had some success. But these days? 

I've got to admire them in some way, for keeping true to these essential eighties Metal style, they at least deserve some recognition for that.

68/100

Erik Morren.