Devil In Disguise is the fourth album by German melodic rockers Hotwire, coming some four years after their last. 

In terms of style, Hotwire are very much along the same lines as Gotthard and Bonfire, continuing the tradition of fine Germanic melodic rock.  On offer here we have 11 tracks, including two covers (Hot Love by Marc Bolan and Ride The Night Away by Southside Johnny). 

The album is produced by former Bonfire member Chris Lausmann and a mighty fine job he has done too, may I say. I really think there’s no excuse these days not to have a decent production for any CD release and if they all sounded this good, there’d be no complaints from this quarter. 

The album kicks off with “Waterfalls”, with vocalist Andy Urbeck giving us a polished, if quite heavily-accented performance. His vocals throughout are good, in particular shining on some of the slower, more ballad-like tracks such as “Feelings”. His style is fairly much in keeping with many of his peers in the genre, although on the penultimate track, “Escaping”, I could have sworn I was listening to Michael Kiske, in his more melodic recent output. 

There’s a little something for everyone in terms of song style here as well. For those who appreciate the well crafted melodic power ballad, we have “Wonderland” and the aforementioned “Feelings”. For those that like their rock a little harder we have the excellent “Skytrain” and the title track itself. For those curious about cover versions, I really liked the Southside Johnny song and the way they cover it, but I felt “Hot Love” (a laid-back cool version if ever there was one) was pretty decent in its own right, but didn’t really fit in stylistically with the rest of the album. I personally would have preferred them to leave it as perhaps a bonus track or extra track for a single release. 

Overall this is an album that lovers of the melodic rock scene are going to enjoy.  It perhaps doesn’t quite hit the heights attained by the likes of Gotthard or Bonfire, but it is a well written, well played and polished album throughout. There’s very little to dislike about the album or the band and this effort is good enough to encourage me to search out their back catalogue in the near future.

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Track List

Waterfalls
Devil In Disguise
Hot Love
Wonderland
Ride The Night Away
Feelings
Skytrain
I Know
Here I Am
Escape
Everytime You Want It

Line Up

Andy Urbeck - Vocals
Alex Espinosa - Guitars
Winnie Neumann - Bass
Tom Glas - Drums