Founded 1979, 220 VOLT was among the top hard rock acts in Scandinavia during the 80s and released their first, self-titled LP on CBS in June 1983. The band’s reputation was built on strong album releases and energetic live shows. Besides performing their own headline shows, the Swedes have also toured as support for AC/DC and Nazareth among others.
Recently Music On CD have been doing a much needed reissue of these great Eighties 220 VOLT albums, one of them being 1987’s “Young And Wild“. While this release has been originally conceived as a compilation of tracks from their first 3 albums, in fact works as completely new one album.
“Young And Wild” includes 3 of the best songs from the previous Lp’s, but re-mixed, giving ’em a new sonic approach, sharper, more melodic. Then there’s 2 new songs recorded for this release, 2 tracks from a standalone 7″ only released in Sweden, a track only appeared on the Swedish-only initial release of the band’s first album, plus exclusive B-sides, non album tracks.
As you see, all new + rare material, and, by the way, killer stuff. “Young And Wild” resulted very hard to find over the years, so this Music On CD re-print is more than welcomed.
November of 1985 saw the release of a new 220 Volt single and this time it featured two new tracks that weren’t on any of the previous studio albums. This would be the last single the band did before entering the military service.
The single was ‘High Heels’ and the idea would be that the record label should release a sort of compilation album in 1986 to make sure the band wasn’t forgotten while they were away playing around in the woods instead of the stage.
“Young And Wild” did happened and included some new material, some re-mixes of old songs and some single B-sides that were put on. However the label didn’t get it out until April of 1987 and by then the band had finished their duties.
220 Volt recorded new tracks like ‘High Heels’, ‘Young And Wild’, ‘Lorraine’ and ‘Children Of The Plains’. The three first tracks would be released as singles and the fourth would not make it onto the album but would be used as a B-side for the ‘High Heels’ single.
The single ‘Lorraine’ became the band’s biggest success so the label tried to follow it up by releasing the song ‘Young And Wild’ as a single too in October of 1987. It was backed by ‘Dreams’, an old unreleased track recorded in the winter of 1984.
Also included here is the single ‘Heavy Christmas’, recorded by 220 Volt for the 1984 holidays, a matalized Chrsitmas songs planty of hard rockin’ fury.
“Young And Wild” is a great album, and while takes recordings from different sessions it sounds cohesive, solid as a rock. Aside from the new 1987 songs especially recorded for this release, the rest are not present into any other 220 Volt album, standalone singles (never on digital) hard to find.
Highly Recommended
You’ve seen it first at plotn08
01 – Young And Wild
02 – Firefall
03 – Mistreated Eyes
04 – Lorraine
05 – High Heels
06 – Powergames (Re-Mixed)
07 – Heavy Christmas
08 – Mind Over Muscle (Re-Mixed)
09 – Dreams
10 – Electric Messengers (Re-Mixed)
Joakim Lundholm – Vocals
Mats Karlsson – Guitars, Backing Vocals
Mike Larsson – Bass, Backing Vocals
Peter Hermansson – Drums
Peter Olander – Guitars, Backing Vocals
Thomas Drevin – Guitars, Backing Vocals