Are the 80’s back, because it sure does sound that way with Laura Wilde’s album ‘Sold My Soul’? From the very start of the first song my first thought was on how much Laura Wilde sounds like an 80’s rocker. Everyone of her songs on the album has that 80’s rock/punk sound to them and I really liked it. Though most of the songs are about meeting guys, sleeping around, and just being a player, nothing new, it fits the songs really well. If these songs where about anything other topic, like if she was talking about how in love she is with someone and how they light up her world, well the songs would have lost some of the appeal to them. Being able to talk about having fun and just doing what she wants in the songs gives them some edge and that edge is what makes it good.

I like music from the 80’s, from the radio pop to the garage punk, that era had some great music, so having a new performer who has made a CD that sounds like it’s from then has made me like it. Though, ‘Sold My Soul’ does not sound like she is trying to copy the sound of the 80’s (if she is I couldn’t tell it), Laura Wilde sounds like someone who has started singing and by chance just sounds that way. Her songs are short but they are full of energy, lots of it, enough so that I stayed interested in listening to the songs after 3 times in a row. That energy is being put out by both her vocals but mainly it’s the instruments that have given the songs their energy and vibrancy.

However, what makes me like her is also what at first made me not like her and what might hurt her, Laura Wilde’s voice. Laura Wilde’s voice is not this smooth, even toned female voice that has this sound of near perfect levels. Instead what her voice sounds like is raw, untouched, no synthesizer enhance voice that has some rasps to it, she goes out of tune, her pitches go up and down, and she hits keys that shouldn’t be hit during the song. But once I got over the initial shock of hearing this rough, raw voice I realized how much it helps the songs and how she is a good singer. Though she’s not great, she still has that rough voice that don’t sound good at all times, she was fun to listen to. I think if she had vocals that where in tune and staying in pitch I would have not liked these songs and it would have given the songs a radio pop sound instead of the grunge, garage sound they have. It’s because of the rough edge these songs have that allow me to like them.