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This is so far the only album by US band Crystal Fate, who seem dedicated to paying homage to the great Crimson Glory without coming across as bland imitators. This is good, as Wild Steel has all the proof you need that trying to imitate CG too much will only make you look stupid. Crystal Fate's similarities to CG are not really blatant, in that they don't use harmonized pinch-harmonic squeals and they don't have a singer who tries to sound like Midnight.

What they do have is a fistful of pretty kickass songs with clean melodic riffing similar in style to Jon Drenning's guitar attack, and a production job with the bass turned way up so it sounds like the way Jeff Lord's bass work used to on albums like Transcendence. Now, Crystal Fate are no Crimson Glory, but they have put together a damned fine debut anyway. The riffage is all good, with a crunchy sound and solid lead work. The vocals are strong and clean, with just enough edge to give them some balls. If there's one drawback on this disc, it's that none of the songs really stand out and stay with you. These are all good, but none of them are great, if you know what I mean. This is definitely a good album though, and is well worth checking out if you run across it.