Barely old enough to be buying razor blades, this Finnish quartet weren’t even born when their rock heroes ruled the world. Naïve but brimming with youthful energy, this spunky debut fuses the sleazy sounds of Mötley Crüe, Ratt and Cinderella with run-of-the-mill Priest knock-offs.
Although they desperately crave danger – the streets, the booze, the women, the fights – they’re ultimately too young to reflect anything much beyond the shallow emoting and mindless optimism of, say, Dokken or the sparkling car crash of subgenres than was Priest’s Turbo album. They do a good impression of both, incidentally; Locked N’ Loaded could easily be a Turbo outtake, while Hit The Ground is pure mid-period Dokken, complete with reedy, vaguely annoying vocals.
And it’s the vocals that are the album’s weakest link, Vince struggling spectacularly with high notes and failing to make up for it elsewhere. The production, with its wobbly, obtrusive bass, is also well wide of the mark. This was clearly a better idea on paper than it is in real life.
