Tygers of Pan Tang
The Wreck-Age

THE REVIEW

The reason why the Tygers of Pan Tang are famous is certainly not found in this 1985 album, "The Wreck-Age", a pop metal/AOR candy that thrives on unique, unrepeatable novel elements that, in fact, have never been replicated by anyone.

Here hard rock hybridizes with the pop of the era in a Fame style. Genre boundaries disappear, resulting in a brilliant promiscuity that pleases no one. Or does it displease everyone? I know people who would punch the Tygers in the teeth for this album, just as I know people who, like me, proudly display it among their music memorabilia of inestimable sentimental value.

What makes someone despise or adore this album? The electronic drums used as only Legs Diamond of those times knew how, keyboards carving pomp/pop melodies to the limit of tolerance for die-hard metalheads, baroque and sugary choruses constructed with voices layering upon each other in a dazzling display of technical and vocal prowess worthy of the best four-voice groups. But fear not, this is not a Pooh album.

A vitality that rhymes with the eighties pervades the entire album, which, light and bubbly, frolics along the gold leaf inlays scattered across the staves of a score that races like a freeway. A clean and airy production adds decibels to every movement of air generated by the band, who, with a completely personal vision, began to play the album as seen on the cover, in leather jackets, with hints of lipstick and eyeliner, continued by shedding the jackets and sweating like 1985's club revelers under the disco ball, and finished by tying a leopard band around their foreheads.

Rock heroes seeking success, thankfully they've achieved it with conviction from my perspective. Although the idea always lingers that these little anthems could be danced by the cast of the now defunct Fame, triumphant tracks like "Waiting", "Protection", "Innocente Yes" - just to name the opening trio - have the power to bring a smile to anyone's face because they target that part of the brain that memorizes and has you singing everything back from memory within five minutes.

The voice is one of those that stands on my personal podium.

Listen to these Tygers adorned as little tigers.