reckless love reckless love

Released: 22 March 2010 Label: Spinefarm UK

To many, Reckless Love seems to be a new Finnish sensation that has come almost out of nowhere. In truth they have quietly been perfecting their art and image for nearly ten years. Fronted by former Crashdiet singer Olli, the band have recently signed to Universal in Finland and therefore managed to go major league ‘overnight’ with glossy marketing, MTV ready videos, and TV & radio coverage on an almost daily basis… there’s a big corporate machine behind this.

The big hair bands of the 80s are back in vogue, and the time is right to launch Reckless Love on those that want spandex and glitter back in their lives. Frontman Olli is a prettier Brett Michaels who can high kick for Finland and knows the girls like him stripping off. Sex still sells after all.

Taking one look at the album cover and it’s clear Reckless Love are the latest applicants to be the new glam kids on the block. You don’t even have to put the CD on to immediately think Mötley Crüe, Kiss and Van Halen just from the font used and the photos on show. There’s not a lot of originality here, but it does what it says on the tin, and the music is pretty much what you expect too; big-haired catchy sleaze pop rock.

There are many great things about this album; upbeat hair metal at its best, great clear vocals, fantastic catchy melodies and gang style backing vocals. It’s a chance for some escapism into a fun world away from our monotonous reality where we can live out our rock n roll fantasies and pretend we could be as debauched as Mötley Crüe in their hey day. It doesn’t matter that it’s unoriginal and retro, Reckless Love is a badly needed band at the moment in a world full X Factor wanabees and Pop Idol rejects repeating lame cover versions.

Opening track Feel My Heat starts with US police sirens and the 80s riffs that wouldn’t be out of place on a Poison or Van Halen album. One More Time is a repetitive sing-a-long number with the huge 80s high-pitched screams thrown in for good measure. It’s cheesy and catchy as hell. I’m sure you get the idea. Badass takes us more down the Crüe riff route and is dirtier, with effects used on Olli’s vocals to make it sleazier. Love Machine has a Joan Jett ‘I love rock n roll’ riff. This is no bad thing. Rhyming love machine with obscene may, however, be the most predictable thing ever. Mid-album comes the ‘hit single’ Beautiful Bomb, its main melody lifted straight from Kiss’ Crazy Nights. I’m not telling if you don’t though.

The track Romance stands out for me as a slightly more mature song which isn’t quite so much the predictable 80s hair metal by numbers, and the ballad of the album, romantically called Sex, cries out for a stadium full of lighters lifted over our heads.

Back to Paradise has a strangely awesome dance beat going on in the background before the catchy ‘80s chorus kicks in. This shows the band’s versatility off more though, the first few tracks on the album saw them a little too much of a one trick pony. So Yeah!! is back to hair metal city though (with lots of traditional oh-woah-oh-ohs), as is Wild Touch and closing track Born to Rock.

The downside apart from the blatantly rehashed material from their 80s inspirations? The slightly cheesy and predictable lyrics. The band look like characters, which will carry them further than other contenders in this genre’s comeback this year, but if you’re not going all out full on cheesy pisstake a la Steel Panther, this slightly comical lyrical content can actually be a little bit cringeworthy and dated now.

Overall however, Reckless Love are definitely up there as one of the more exciting things to come out of Finland for the last few years, and a breath of glamtastic fresh air.

by Lynn Wyeth