Admittedly there is not a lot here that would be considered showstopper material, though to be fair, Heist play a fairly decent sort of hard rock style that wraps a lot of party like flavour around their songs.
Written by: gdmonline
ARTIST: Heist
ALBUM: High Heel Heaven
LABEL: Muscle/IRS
SERIAL: IRSD-82019
YEAR: 1989
CD REISSUE: Discogs Reissue List
COUNTRY OF ORIGIN: USA
LINEUP: Paul Holdgate – lead vocals * Kurt Fry – lead guitar, vocals * Steve Robello – guitar, keyboards, vocals * Craig Truman – bass * Darryl Hill – drums
TRACK LISTING: 01 Loose Lips * 02 High Heel Heaven * 03 She Doesn’t Matter * 04 Deep In The Night * 05 Sink In Pink * 06 Speed Higher * 07 Kiss Me * 08 She Needs Love * 09 Tighter * 10 Say You’re Sorry * 11 One More Dream * 12 Laws Of Love * 13 Don’t Forget Me (bonus) * 14 Misery (bonus)
WEBLINKS: NA
Background
Coming to the hard rock scene a couple of years too late were San Francisco based rockers Heist. Along with a few other Bay Area wannabes such as Jetboy and Babylon A.D, these guys were pretty much admired in their hometown, and straddled the hair metal/glam scene with a sound somewhere between Helix and Dokken.
Admittedly there is not a lot here that would be considered showstopper material, though to be fair, Heist play a fairly decent sort of hard rock style that wraps a lot of party like flavour around their songs, somewhat like colourful candy wrapping.
The Songs
There’s a bunch of fun, good time songs onboard. The title track is a good example of their overall approach. ‘She Doesn’t Matter’ riffs easily in a melodic rock groove, the vocals of Holdgate gives it a glam edge. ‘Speed Higher’ to these ears sounds like Motorhead doing melodic hard rock. Excellent stuff!
The band try their hand at the rock ballad thing, with ‘Deep In The Night’ and do quite well at it, sounding like The Ladder‘s ‘Double Shot O Love’. A couple of the tracks have that spandex anthemic quality about them, namely ‘Sink In Pink’ and ‘Tighter’. ‘Kiss Me’ could be a Helix track for all we know, Holdgate doing his best Brian Vollmer impression.
In Summary
The band didn’t venture far beyond this, though several of the members went onto other projects, including singer Paul Holdgate who would go on to sing for Montrose (the band) during the 90’s.
Holdgate also sang for a band called The Fear, that released an album ‘As Far As The I Can C’ during 1995. He also hooked up with guitarist Steve Robello, both are now part of a Montrose tribute band called Rock The Nation.
As recently as last month (July 2008), ex members of Heist also participated in a Bay Area reunion event, though this is not likely to lead to a permanent reformation. A couple of years later in 2010, Retrospect Records reissued this CD on their roster, which also includes two bonus tracks.
Video
High Heel Heaven
Kiss Me
Deep In The Night
