Various Artists - The Young and Wild Ones

Various Artists – The Young and Wild Ones

Keil Records C.12-22-013 [2022]
Rango – We Are Rockers / Jerry – Undead / Marv – Stranger In The House / Jones – The Package / Paddy – A Life of Vanity / Jerry – Hot Rod Man / Jones – Treasure / Rango – Metro / Paddy – 666c Machine / Marv – Too Old To Live, Too Young Too Die
(+ CD with ten bonus tracks)

You always feel like a kid at Christmas when you receive a new release from Keil records. You open your package, and you’re rewarded with tons of little extras. This compilation makes no exception to the rule: you’ll find a patch, stickers, pictures, two booklets (one with information and one with lyrics and illustrations), a poster, and a cd with extras, all in a beautiful gatefold sleeve wrapping a magnificent green vinyl.
But don’t let these pretty things distract you from the main thing: the music. As I said, it’s a compilation album. I’m old enough to have bought classic Neo-Rockabilly and Psychobilly compilations when they came out in the 80s. It was an excellent way to discover new artists.
There don’t seem to be many these days, so it’s a good reason to rejoice, especially when the artists are of that level.
The Young and Wild Ones gathers five young and very creative German artists with two songs each. The styles range from clean Neo-Rockabilly to wild Psychobilly, with many good things in between.
Jones (aka Jonas Heider)is the more traditional of the five. He delivers two excellent, highly melodic tracks co-written with Moritz Kruit (also on drums). Both songs are jumping and rocking with nice picking (in which one can hear some Setzer influences) and good use of the piano.
At 26, Paddy is the veteran of the five. His credits include, among others, the Rusty Robots, Sandy & the Wild Wombatz and the Minestompers. His two songs feature Mark Twang (Dave Phillips, Sandy and the Wild Wombatz) on guitar and Raphael Landauer on drums. Those tunes are on the thin line between Neo-Rockabilly and Psychobilly. They wouldn’t be out of place on a Batmobile album from the early 90s.
Jerry mixes Teddy Boy Rock’n’roll with Psychobilly to create a brand new genre, highly personal yet addictive.
Rango is the youngest. He was only 16 when he recorded his tracks. As if it wasn’t enough, he played all the instruments too. His music is a very original brand of Psychobilly with a propulsive slap bass in which elements of New-wave and post-punk subtly creep in. He’s something like the music link between the most recent albums of the Quakes and the Rusty Robots (whom he joined on double bass). Without a doubt, Rango is a force to be reckoned with.
Marv (who also plays drums on Jerry’s tunes) is the most extreme sounding of the five. His two songs clearly show the influence of the early Quakes and bands like Skitzo and all this kind of heavy Psychobilly stuff.
As you can see, this compilation’s quality resides not only in the artist’s talent but also in the fact that you have five different musicians with strong personalities. Each made me want to listen to a whole album from them.
The CD features ten bonus songs with alternate tracks, different versions and mixes, and unissued songs. It’s almost as if you’d had volume two on the CD.
Talking about that, I hope that the fine folks at Keil records with think about a volume two in the near future, and who knows, this time maybe with wild and young Psychobilly and Rockabilly girls.