Live Event: Reckless Love/The Treatment, The Electric Ballroom, London, September 6th 2022

The Electric Ballroom in Camden is always a great venue for a gig, so seeing as I hadn’t been there in ages for any live music I was thrilled to see a double bill like Reckless Love and The Treatment were playing there.

 

The Treatment were up first, and while it seemed the bulk of the crowd were there to see Reckless Love, I’m sure they won over a lot of people with their enthusiasm and hard rock stylings, although to be fair I can’t say a lot of the songs remained in my head afterwards.

 

After that was the band everyone was there to see, Reckless Love. Returning to these shores after 6 years away in support of a new and very different album in Turborider. 

 

To say Turborider is a bit of a departure for Reckless Love is a bit of an understatement – fusing their hair metal sound with synthwave! The album has attracted the usual moaners on the internet, but otherwise has gone down very well. In fact, someone in the crowd screamed “It’s the best album ever!” at one point!

 

And while it is a very good album, it is something else entirely live. It sounded absolutely phenomenal, and for me the new songs like Eyes of a Maniac, Like a Cobra, Kids of the Arcade, Prodigal Sons and the title track were the highlights of the set for me. Not knocking the rest of the show – older material like Hot, Animal Attraction and especially Back to Paradise went down especially well with me, and again sounded so much better in a live environment.

 

I’m hoping Reckless Love continue with this foray into synthwave. The crowd loved hearing it and and there is definitely a gap in the market for “the bastard child of hair metal and synthwave” as singer Olli Herman called their new album mid show, and it could defintely open up the world of synthwave to hair metal fans and vice versa – a win for all concerned.

 

I think everyone in the Electric Ballroom last Tuesday night would agree that I hope it’s not another 6 years before they return.

 

Review by Thom with press access kindly supplied by BJF Media.