Label: AOR Heaven Records
Release date: October 31, 2020
Production: Eric Modin
Album length: 47.00 min
Genre: Melodic Rock/AOR
Rating: 8.5/10
If anyone can pull it off, it’s the Swedes. Musically, nothing’s standing in their way. That goes for every genre, rock and metal especially. Wildness are just one more band playing by a tried-and-true recipe that springs from the European, or more precisely Scandinavian, post-millennial melodic rock wave, leaning hard on the traditional AOR heritage that flourished in the eighties. Yep. This is a band you can line up next to older Scandinavian acts like 220 Volt, Renegade or Treat, and Wildness could just as well grow into the new heroes of the melodic rock scene for the current decade, which, mind you, got off to a seriously weird start. If H.E.A.T., Crazy Lixx and the like left their mark on the last one, this one could belong to Wildness. Then again, maybe they’ve missed the real train, since they should have jumped on it fifteen years ago, but still. Never say never. Reheating a good soup is always timely. Especially after the band already kicked up quite a bit of dust three years ago with a more-than-bold self-titled debut.
“Ultimate Demise” is Wildness’s second studio album. The band recently landed in a “slight” pickle, since they had to look for a new singer. That turned out to be Eric Forsberg, who only joined this past spring. Wildness are a quintet with an unsuspected songwriting talent. In the musical sphere they’ve committed to, they handle things with real mastery and finesse. Fully committed. In the glow of true perfectionism, and that goes for the very good production of the album too. All the songs reach a great fluidity, a graduated atmosphere, a predatory reach of pomp and bombast and, most importantly, an effective link between verse and chorus that sustains and intensifies the ultra-musicality of the whole thing. Exactly what you need to pull off in a genre and within musical frameworks where pretty much everything has already been said: still a very good, appealing album.
Wildness have two guitarists in the lineup and the guitar sound is hefty and concrete. The mid-eight passages with excellent guitar solos are very well executed too. Of course the arrangements are dressed up in rustling synth curtains straight out of the eighties, which in this case is practically a must, but the guitars still dominate the production. Every single member also handles backing vocal harmonies, and that makes the phenomenal Forsberg downright triumphant, especially in the chorus melodies. The singer has a crystal-clear, authoritative and explosive voice, with no shortage of sensual “swagger” (read: softness) and polished vocal charisma. Forsberg is definitely a find, and compared to the debut the band has surely grown artistically with him. Put differently: without Forsberg this album definitely wouldn’t be as good as it is. In places he leans ever so slightly toward Michael Sweet (Stryper). It’s hard to pick the highlights, especially when you start comparing which chorus is the most gripping. Renegades of Love is definitely among them, right alongside it is Cold War,… or the wound-up opener, effortlessly catchy Die Young, and even the ballad Falling To Pieces keeps the charge going, with a melancholy that develops some darkness too, and that mild obscurity carries over into Burning You Down (again with a very distinctive chorus). As associations flash through the head, the mind also stops at the Australians White Widow, especially their second album “Serenade”. Cold War, Denial, Borderline or My Hideway. The album closes with a solemn, punchy title-track ballad with a pinch of chanson, and since it stands apart from the rest of the material, the band put it at the tail end of the album. The melody is something Eric Martensson (Eclipse) could have cooked up too.
So? AOR lives on, somehow (sneaking along). Slipped in in a current way. And brilliantly repackaged. Not surprising, but thrilling all the same. This is music made for the car. When you’re driving at night. Home from a gig. Whether from downtown Ljubljana or from Vienna. It grabs you. Instantly. The retro-eighties cover alone is enough. With “Ultimate Demise” Wildness are definitely not even halfway down their road. It’s an excellent album, which doesn’t mean Wildness couldn’t top it artistically in the future. The band is on the verge of its creative zenith. The next two albums will show it.
Author: Aleš Podbrežnik
Tracklist:
1. Call Of The Wild
2. Die Young
3. Nowhere Land
4. Cold Words
5. Renegades Of Love
6. Falling Into Pieces
7. Burning It Down
8. My Hideaway
9. Denial
10. Borderline
11. The Ultimate Demise
Lineup:
Erik Forsberg – vocals
Adam Holmström – guitar
Pontus Sköld- guitar
Marcus Sjösund – bass
Eric Modin – drums
