Today we have here in exclusive this rarity well worth to listen if you like late ’80s female fronted melodic hard rock: Californian rockers STILLETTO recordings from 1989 to 1992 remastered. Except a few tracks released on cassette as promo back in the early Nineties, these songs are available for the first time anywhere, a collection of Stilletto material never heard before outside of music industry circles.
Not to be confused with the Canadian band Stiletto (spelled with a single “l”) STILLETTO features the absolutely outstanding and incredibly soulful vocal talents of Debby Holiday who later in 2000’s found success in the dance/R&B market, but which heart belongs to rock n’ roll. At the time, Holiday was hired by Jake E. Lee to sing in Badlands on their UK tour to replace Ray Gillen after he leave the band.
This is classic US Female Melodic Hard Rock in the style of SARAYA, VIXEN, WITNESS, with a quite good sound quality despite the demo nature of these recordings. It’s weird, but the CD doesn’t include one of the songs from that promo cassette, so we added it here as ‘extra’.
Debby Holiday’s voice is impressive, her power and range is second to none, and the songs are catchy and very melodic with radio / MTV potential. Why STILLETTO never make it big? Talent is evident, with the rest of the band really skillful as well (the line-up also featured former Megadeth guitarist Jeff Young)… They arrived to late into the scene, with Vixen and Heart capitalizing the female-fronted melodic hard spin-off.
The band won a battle of the bands contest hosted by KNAC, at the time the biggest radio station in Los Angeles. plot08. They managed to get one song officially released on a compilation, but all the music recorded by STILLETTO remained unreleased… until now.
Kudos to Vanity Music Group / 20th Century Music to finally release STILLETTO music, a very good American female fronted melodic hard rock act from the glorious era of the genre. Only available on CD, ‘STILLETTO’ was released past year, but only now 2022 properly distributed.
Tracks
1. Alive & Kicking
2. Dear John
3. Reasons for Love
4. Shaking the Monkey
5. New Religion
6. Double Dose
7. Down on Me
8. Lay Your Hammer Down
9. Calling Your Name
10. Stone Cold Heavy Love
11. Love is on Your Side
12. Lesson in Love
13. Take Me On
14. Wild Roses
15. Lady Blue
Personnel
Debby Holiday lead vocals
Jaki Cantlin Guitars, Vocals
Steve Sturm Guitars, Vocals
Neil Ives Bass, Vocals
J.J. Halloway Drums
STILLETTO – Stilletto [1989-1992 unreleased / remaster] (2022) , MP3+FLAC
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