Fans of female fronted AOR must now open their eyes and read this review, because this band ZZZYZ is very interesting for fans of this genre. ZZYZX was an American band that featured the female lead vocalist Windy Wagner. Their first mini-LP featured 7 excellent tracks that musically sounded like a mix between the heavier melodic rock of bands like VXN/TANTRUM and the more AOR/Poprock orientated acts like MARCY LEVY, BACKSEAT SALLY... There is even some Pomprock.

The LP was produced quite well by Joise Solomon. Opener "Hold on" is classic sounding female AOR a la SHEILA, THE BREAKS. Listen to that great melodic guitarsound, those lovely AOR keys and you will be hooked! Vocally it sounds like TANTRUM/VXN.

Next track "On and on" is a pure classic female AOR rocker in the best early 80s tradition of female rockers such as TERI DESARIO ('Caught'), MARCY LEVY, TANE CAIN, BACKSEAT SALLY... Again ther eare some lovely AOR keys. The song could have easily been featured in one of the episodes of 'Fame-NBC TV-series' around 1985.

The rest of the LP is not as good as the opening two tracks. "Runnin" and "The war" both remind me of WIDOW crossed with TANTRUM, just nice Melodic rock, but nothing special.

The only further memorable song on this LP is "Tell me how". This is midtempo AOR/Pomprock with a lot of STYX influences during the chorus. And this song could have been on the JET classic Pomprock release.

After this LP, the band released another mini-album titled 'Next exit' in 1986, but this is even harder to trace. After the split of ZZYZX, vocalist Windy Wagner started a solo-career which has resulted in some demo tapes that were produced by Ole Evenrude. Musically she has moved more into a Poprock direction, somewhat like ERIKA as I was told.

If you ever see this record, I would advise you to buy it, because there are a couple of great female AOR rockers on the album that must be heard by fans of this underrated genre. Click here to hear one of the songs of the LP.
 

(Points: 8.5 out of 10)