Chez Kane – Reckless | soundsfromthedarkside

Holy eighties, Batman! We check out Chez Kane’s new album Reckless and get lost in a time long forgotten.

Look at that cover photograph. Just look at it. If that doesn’t signal eighties rock to you, I don’t know what does. It breathes Flashdance, Lita Ford, Terminator’s Tech Noir. It harkens back to a time we played with He-Man and Fisto. It’s big and bold and pink and sexy. It says “this is full of cheese and should not be good.” But it is.

Chez Kane’s third record hits it right out of the ball park from the opening track Reckless and keeps on going relentlessly from there. Once again co-written and played by 80’s aficionado Danny Rexon (Crazy Lixx), Kane takes us back to a time where the world was filled with synthesisers, unapologetic saxophones and cheesy lyrics about nights of passion and loaded guns being all but literal weapons with bullets in them. If you close your eyes you can feel the fluorescent pink creep up on you.

Reckless is as retro as it gets, with a big emphasis on keys and flashy guitars, and might sound like a bit of a schtick for some people, which is completely understandable. This is a record with songs called Love Tornado and Strip Me Down after all. The thing, however, is that the music on this forty-minute record is actually good. Yes, it is a purposefully designed throwback to another era, but it’s also genuine and full of heart. Listen to a corker like Tongue of Love (yes, it really is called that) and not bop your head to the huge bass guitar and the keys. And Tongue of Love rhymes with show me what your heart’s made of. Because of course it does.

Sporting ten songs and a running time of little over forty minutes, Reckless is an easily digestible, hard rocking eighties burger that does not challenge your intellect, does not overly warrant your attention and will not make you question life, the universe or everything else. It exists purely as a throwback to another time and does an excellent job in taking you there and keeping you entertained throughout its running time. It is a big hair metal album, but manages to not be overly irreverent. Play Street Survivor on any contemporary (rock) radio station and people will not know whether it’s new or a classic from times long past, but it sounds like you have known it for years without it being a copy of anything. That’s good song writing.

If you like big, fist-pumping eighties rock, being performed by good musicians and an excellent vocalist, you will love Reckless as both a proper rock album and a call back to the sound of the middle eighties, where you had to put your leg warmers on before you would be allowed to put the radio on in the first place. Is that cover photograph too sexy? Maybe it is, but it also sells exactly what’s in the tin.

Buy it here: https://frontiers.shop/collections/chez-kane

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