Hot Wire are a German quartet that seems to specialize in applying neo-rockabilly treatment to pop songs. Many bands have done that before with various degrees of success, when it works it's usually on short distance, but a full album unless you're very good is far too much. Above all, the song has to be good and adding a slap bass isn't enough to transform it into a rockabilly number. For example, recently Barney's Boogie Train has covered Iron Maiden's I'm Running Free and Mickael Jackson's Beat It which arent specially "rockabilly", but they managed to find the rockin' element in this songs (the train rhythm for Iron Maiden and the syncopation for Jackson). So why Hot Wire covered Roxette (the 80's band not the Doctor Feelgood song) remains a mystery. Same for Madonna's Like a Prayer. Once the surprise is gone, there's nothing really interesting left, musically speaking. That's too bad because you can hear they are good musicians and even if the singer is not the best I've heard, they do a good job. It's just the choice of the material that is odd.

The second album is made of more rockin' material and works better, but the comparison to the originals often works against the band (Proud Mary, Cocaine Blues, Ignition...). It also contains ten bonus tracks recorded live but the sound is very poor.

Not a bad band but they should work on their own songs.

Fred "Virgil" Turgis