Wig Wam – Out of the Dark

6/10

We’re now counting almost two decades since Wig Wam brought glam rock to Eurovision, a deed that wether you like it or not remains the everlasting touchstone in the bands long career. And that goes for me too; despite how much I liked the bands classic 2004 debut 666… Neighbour of the Beast (or as I learned to call it from the 2005 re-release: Hard to Be a Rock ‘n’ Roller… in Kiev!), I can’t say I’ve kept a good eye on the band. It’s sort of a shame, because I can’t deny what great tunes they did create on that album, such as Bless the Night, Crazy Things and Mine All Mine, songs I still can sing along to with great joy. But the band still disappeared in the tide of glam rock bands that broke big at the same time, and that Eurovision thing casts an eternal shadow over their career.

So what kind of album is Out of the Dark? Considering how similar melodic rock bands tend to sound nowadays, Wig Wam surprise me with a fresh sense of variation. There’s heavy stuff, some metal, but also the pop vein that made the band unique. It’s not the kind of modern pop that most AOR bands today mess around with, rather the timeless punch that song writers like Chinnichap (who wrote Sweets biggest hits, among others) and The Beatles once gave us. Just listen to keen tunes like The Purpose, the instrumental 79 (with great guitar playing from Trond Holter) or the heavy opener Out of the Dark. This is way better and mature than what the cartoony cover art suggests.

Sure, Out of the Dark may not be a groundbreaking hard rock album in any way, which is probably to the bands disadvantage. But it is still more vital than most getting made today within the genre. And no band capable of creating songs like the albums epic high light Forevermore can ever be called used-to-be’s. What a great track!