Wildstreet - “Wildstreet IV” EP

Now the band are back with their latest release, the “Wildstreet IV” EP.

Stylistic they still hark back to the heyday of 80’s rock when bands were playing up and down Sunset strip looking for that big break. They have the look of Motley Crue in their “Shout At the Devil” days while the sound owes as much to Poison as the Crue and there’s healthy elements of GnR, Maiden, Aerosmith, and others in there too.

It’s the sound that tells them apart from bygone bands. The first thing that you hear is how tight the band are. There’s no wasted space on any of these seven songs. The sound is dense and heavy. Eric Jayk growls, snarls, soars, and seduces in turn with his vocal while Jimmie Marlowe’s lead guitar sings, ringing and rising to one crescendo after another in his solos.

The EP kicks off with “Heroes”, and “Sick To Death”. “Heroes”, is one of the heaviest songs I’ve heard from the band. The guitar intro leads into a song with so much going on it’s nearly impossible to take the separate parts apart. There’re shades of Iron Maiden to this track in the sound and the lyrics. “Sick To Death” is slower but it’s no power ballad. Maybe a twisted ballad would be an appropriate way to describe as Eric Jayk spends the choruses bemoaning how much he’s “Sick to death of calling your name”.

“Won’t be apart” does deliver the big ballad with a sly unexpected twist. There’s a very definite hint of country layered into the track with what sounds like a pedal steel guitar backing up the expected electric leads. It’s a sweet addition and it gets its own solo spot. Eric Jayk adds a smooth subdued (for him) vocal on top to deliver a powerful ballad of aching hearts longing to be back together.

“Come Down” gets us rocking again. We’re heading out into the city, and getting a little crazy and when you’re up who wants to come down? Not Wildstreet. Jimmy Marlow riffing and soloing throughout the track are excellent. The layered vocals on the chorus make for a powerful anthemic chant of the “Don’t like to come down” line in the lyrics.

“Say Goodbye” delivers a true Hard Rock power ballad moment. The band give us meaty drum, soaring guitars and aching vocals. The song provides lost love, haunting memories, dreams of lost lover. Everything the perfect power ballad needs.

The EP run is come with two more rockers. “Mrs Sleazy” and “The Road”. “Mrs Sleazy” is the more straight forward hard rocking track of the too. The drums and guitars are amped up and the vocal snarl over the top of them. “The Road” slow down a bit. It has an appropriate lyric to finish things off as Jayk sings of being on “the end of the road I’m on”.

And that’s it. Seven tight hard rockers that will all sound great as Wildstreet set off on the road once more. If the step up after their last stint on the road is similar at the end of this one, we should expect something special around their twentieth anniversary as a band.

Wildstreet’s “Wildstreet IV” EP is available now from Golden Robot Records.

Wildstreet are currently on the road in mainland Europe and will tour there until early May 2024.