Wig Wam
Wall Street

In 2005, Norway voted Wig Wam to represent them in the worlds biggest music competition - the Eurovision Song Contest - and the result was a flattering ninth (out of 39), idolization in Norway and ninteen weeks in the Norwegian charts, which isn't bad for a glam rock band. The next year they released their second full length album (with the first being released in 2004) but soon after the Finnish hard rock act Lordi went on to win the Eurovision Song Contest of 2006 and with that title they also took every interest the world might have had in Wig Wam with them. However, the band kept on fighting and in 2010 they finally released their third album. This is the fourth album and just like the last they have help from Frontiers records to release the album. My guess is, though, that the band are still mostly related to the Eurovision Song Contest performance and that might be something the so called "real" hard rockers have a problem with and don't give the band a proper chance because of it (even though I personally couldn't care less about it since I liked the song).

'Wall Street' have some brilliant hit songs and it's apparent to me that Wig Wam still can do those songs properly, but there are also some "deep" songs and more profound material on the eleven track strong and 40 minutes long album. Overall, I think the album is well varied and songs comes from all corners of the glam scene. The almost grand and somewhat string-enforced title track that opens the album sounds much like another Eurovison song contester but the traditional hard rocker OMG! immediately shows that the band won't go in that direction on this album. As we then work ourself through the album we hear some Chopin-vibes in the otherwise so Army Of Lovers-smelling Victory Is Sweet, some 00's power metal in Bleeding Daylight, some 80's disco-pop touch from One Million Elements and even a couple of ballads. And then of course two of the strongest hit songs this year from Wrong Can Feel So Right and Natural High.

The music mostly goes in the glam inspired hard rock genre and all though enriched by elements you normally don't hear from that kind of music, these elements are then nicely merged in to the music to such an extent that you never really feel they've left the glam foundation. However, the vocals distinguish itself a bit from this foundation since it's mostly sung in the lower register and not so high that even dogs have problems hearing all the tones, which otherwise is how the vocals are done in this genre. Mr. Glam, which is the name of the vocalist, don't have a bad voice in any way and I'm not saying it's annoying to listening to him but it is quite an unusual voice for glam rock since it's neither smooth as soap or uttering words about the dirty side of love - which is another thing glam vocalists often do (sex, drugs and rock 'n' living).

Instrumentally the band don't make any surprising choices but as I said earlier, they sometimes put a few elements of different character within. The tempo is mostly mid-tempo and it's not really any fast songs there, but a few slower ones - like Tides Will Turn and already mentioned Things Money Can't Buy. I think they've erased most of the things of odd characteristics that could have ruined the album and what we're left with is a strong album without reasons to disappoint anyone, packed with all the right ingredients for success: a few potential hits, a few slow songs and a few rockers - tick, tick, tick.

However, regular readers know I won't leave an album reviewed like that. There's always something to complain about so, what can we find on 'Wall Street'? Well, in my opinion, the album is almost annoyingly perfect. It's almost like they've made it by the book as perfect as they've could in defiance only to put us on our places. The length, number of songs, variation on the kinds of songs, hit-potential and tempo-variation and even the production are all made annoyingly perfect, if you look at it from the surface. So what could possibly be wrong? Well, nothing feels wrong. But it's not everything that feels right either. I do think they've made one of the best songs of 2012 with Wrong Can Feel So Right which I've probably played twice as many times as the rest but except for this the real euphoria stay at a distance. It is, however, one of the best songs of 2012 so far and a good album in every way. But it is more of a good overall performance than noticeable joyfulness so Wig Wam on Wall Street feels very much like a good combination… however, they'll probably won't become a new Gordon Gecko.