Wishing Well - Rat Race (2018)

Finnish hard rockers Wishing Well will release their second album “Rat Race” on March 2. The first single “Children Of Paradise” off the new album was released on 13 February. The band features a new line-up with Rafael Castillo on vocals and Arto Teppo on Hammond organ. “Rat Race” is a follow-up to their well received debut album “Chasing Rainbows”, released in February 2016. The new album was engineered and mixed by Henrik Sirelä, who was also in charge of recording their first album.

Just like its predecessor “Rat Race” features many hard rock and metal styles from fast power metal of the opening track “Wheeling And Dealing” to slow doom of “Pilgrim Caravan” and a lot in between, including “A Little Dream”, a classical guitar duet and epic “Grain Of Sand” power ballad. The most distinctive new element on the album is the Hammond organ by Arto Teppo, giving the songs classic old school vibe, which goes very well together with new vocalist Rafael Castillo’s dark and raspy voice that oozes passion and power on every track.

“Rat Race” is a versatile and fresh hard rock album with its many styles and surprising elements like the child choir of “Children Of Paradise” and Arabic violin of “Pilgrim Caravan”.  “Rat Race” fully lives up to the expectations made by their debut album two years ago. It will most definitely take the band to the next level in terms of awareness, credibility and originality.

The band now consists of Chilean vocalist Rafael Castillo, organist Arto Teppo, bassist Rick Becker, drummer Juha Kivikanto and guitarist Anssi Korkiakoski, the mastermind and songwriter of the band. “Just like the last time we recorded both older and new songs, trying to come up with a strong package of different kind of stuff. Rafael had a strong impact on all of the arrangements. He has a strong and personal voice and I’m astonished by the amount of passion and feeling he was able to contribute to the music”, says Anssi Korkiakoski, who again wrote all the songs for the album.

“We’re very happy with the album and it was good fun to record with the new guys, who all have been around and know their trade well. It’s been a long time plan for me to use Hammond organ and with an old school player like Arto it was a great pleasure to make it happen. It took a lot of hard work to record the album and now we want people to hear and feel it. It’s not perfect but a little bit of raw because that’s the way we like it. There are so many perfectly digitally polished albums out there today with no soul but we’re definitely not one of those bands”, Anssi says.

The band will play a mini tour in Finland in April 2018, supporting Doogie White.

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