Hailing from Toronto, Canada, all-girl melodic hard rock band STILETTO came together in September of 1989 as an answer to US Vixen. While the group toured extensively across Canada and the United States playing at famed clubs such as Toronto’s Rock-N-Roll Heaven & Gasworks Tavern as well as Hollywood’s Whisky a Go Go & Roxy Theatre, they arrived too late into the scene to secure a major record label contract.
Now, all Stiletto recordings, very well done, professional recordings, have been released under the title “Don’t Call Me Sweetie“, all digitally remastered.
Stiletto’s sound and style certainly mirrors US Vixen, melodic hard rock with polished arrangements and poppy, catchy choruses. Stiletto started in 1989, technically a bit after the early beginning of Vixen but right around the same time the “classic” Vixen was taking off.
Musically, add a touch of Saraya, Heart’s balladry, and some bite on a couple of hard rockin’ tracks.
“Don’t Call Me Sweetie” starts with the more commercial pop metal tunes “Best Of Me,” “Don’t Turn Away” and “One Night”, but gets rockier as the album progresses, with all songs very much radio oriented in a 1989-1990 fashion. All are very well played and recorded by a professional team.
“I Can Do” starts off with a funky Bango Tango-ish bass popping, which carries over for the rest of the song as well.
“Running From Love” is a full-on rocker with the mentioned Vixen influence, yet also a bit of earlier Femme Fatale because of its more metallic feel.
The last two songs, “Through The Ages” and “Bring Back The Fire”, continue with the more hard rockin’ structure into the songs, even to the point of having some slight L.A. metal elements to them.
While Stiletto arrived a little too late to the scene when recording labels started to look elsewhere musically speaking, these girls could have made it big two years earlier.
The 5-piece had the looks and were very good, with solid songwriting and musicianship above the average for this kind of unreleased stuff, and that ’80s catchy melodic hard / radio ready sensibility.
So Stiletto‘s “Don’t Call Me Sweetie” is a worthy addition to those looking to the past for the musical memories, and to add to their late ’80s / early ’90s melodic hard rock collection.
Highly Recommended
01 – Best Of Me
02 – Don’t Turn Away
03 – One Night
04 – Stand Up
05 – Fallin’
06 – How Could You
07 – I Can Do
08 – Runnin’ Away From Love
09 – Through The Ages
10 – Bring Back The Fire
Carole Couture – lead vocals
Ann Greenwood – guitars
Caroline Soucy – guitars
Lori Hoppenheit – bass
Tracy Hilderley – drums
STILETTO – Don’t Call Me Sweetie [FnA digitally remastered], MP3+FLAC
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