Album Review: Wyldlife - "Year Of The Snake"

 

Hailing from New York and signed to Little Steven's Wicked Cool Records, the fact that Wyldlife are pretty much a straight up power-pop band should probably come as a surprise to no-one. The closest template I can think of here is Cheap Trick with a touch of the Ramones and the Buzzcocks chucked in as evidenced on the zippy opening one-two punch of Deathbed and Neon Nightmare.

To be fair, even if they do pretty much tick off every influence you'd expect for a power-pop band from the Elvis Costello snarkiness of Get Well and Tulsa Superstar through the Records style harmonies of Automatic and the Replacements style sour pop of Keeping Up With CT to the more countrified Tom Petty-esque Crime Of The Scene, at least they're doing it well and Year Of The Snake is a varied enough beast to keep your interest. They work best when they dial the venom up a bit such as on the the Thunders style snottiness of Kiss And Tell and the frenetic title track although their attempt at fratboy humour on Sacre Bleu only succeeds in bringing back unwelcome memories of Blink 182 and can be safely skipped.

All in all, while it's not quite a top drawer effort, Year Of The Snake is at least a mainly competent collection of songs which should keep any power pop fans looking for something new to listen to this month happy. You can download it from the Wyldlife Bandcamp page.

NITE SONGS RATING: 🌔🌔🌔🌔🌔🌔🌔🌑🌑🌑 (7/10)