vote
8.5
- Band:
Vicious Rumors - Duration: 00:38:43
- Available from: 25/05/1985
- Label:
-
Shrapnel Records
1985: The world of Heavy Metal is shaken by the bursting and wild advance of his most bastard son. Over twelve months, in fact, the Thrash Metal will release an indefinite amount of sound bombs, historical, which has become seminal over time, managing to embrace more than one continent, to celebrate and testify to a global thrashmania. From “Hell Awaits” of the Slayers, released right in March forty years ago, to “Infernal Overkill” of the Destruction, from “Seven Churches” of the possess (Pretesignano of the future Death Metal) to “To Mega Therion” of the Celtic Frost up to “Spreading The Disease”, dated December 1985, was an authentic machine gun that at the level at the level quantitative (and also qualitative if we want, if it were not that the following year they would have arrived “Master of Puppets” and “Reign in Blood” to beat the competition) would not have replied in the years to come.
Well, among all these matteries there were also those who sought their slice of glory mixing the cards a little, combining the Heavy rockiness, the Melodia Power and the Thrash anger, with a pinch of Epic and a healthy dose of prog, thus in intact a multifaceted steel dynamite. A perfect example of American power metal, of its heavier side, bordering the Speed'n'Thrash.
We are in northern California, coincidentally in the Bay Area, the epochal cradle of many Thrash Metal Band: and it is in this area that the guitarist of Hawaiian origins Geoff Thorpe launches the first invective of his band, the Vicious Rumors. With him, for what will be a unique line-up (in the literal sense of the term), Gary St.Pierre at the voice, Dave Starr on bass, Larry Howe on drums and a certain Vinnie Moore on the second guitar. Basic Quintet for a mixture of strength and quality that pours into the present here “Solcks of the night”, debut album and alarm bell for what would have definitively exploded three years later with “Digital dictator”. Defined, the latter, like the peak of the career of the Vicious Rumors, seems to us at least necessary to pay homage to the very first vagite of the US band, placing the foundations of the sound that would have accompanied her along a career, unfortunately, from infinite changes of training. An element, which if on the one hand has never managed to interrupt the flow of music given by Thorpe and his companions, on the other, he certainly did not guarantee that fundamental continuity of line-up necessary to attempt the path of greater success.
Let's go back to “Solcks of the night”, album, among other things, celebrated in full last year during the show held by the Vicious Rumors in that of Bologna. The beginning, although it is a simple intro, is simply perfect and with a detachment imbued with grit and melody, takes us in the middle of a Californian road. And it is on this hot asphalt that the roar of “Ride (Into the Sun)” is unleashed, a dazzling forerunner of the album: the harmonious coupled of the two guitars combined with the totilizing knight of the rhythmic section marks the passage of the entire song, in which it is St.Pierre himself who launched his very personal sharp, not too much graceful but with that arrogance to the Dee Snider who make them ficcant. Complete. A piece that immediately puts the entire range of the band's potential immediately on the plate; Variety that occurs fully in all of the album. The subsequent “Medusa” is in fact one of the examples of the aforementioned Heavy leatheity, with its choral refrain to raise the most complex stanzas where Moore's talent is exalted with masterful graceful.
There was talk of epicity and the titletrack comes bursting with its ninety load: “Fight, Stay Alive, in The Desert For A Day“It is the incipit of night soldiers, ready to fight for victory and freedom; Grint that is enhanced in all its refrain, following the classic matrix of the 80s (almost from stadium), anticipating the solo of Moore before the second recovery of “Solcks of the Night” which thus goes to sign the legendary value of the song. Compact and definitive initial hat -trick. For his part “Murder” stands out as a sort of mixture of the three pieces that preceded it, lowering the tension, waiting for another historical piece of the band, with a strong emotional impact: “March or die” contains heaviness and sweat, transmitted properly by a St.Pierre never all too exalted; Of course, the comparison with those who will arrive shortly thereafter (Carl Albert) is difficult, but its importance in the debut of the Vicious Rumors is out of doubt.
The aggression and speed of “Blitz the World” opens the second part of the disc, but it is with “invader” that you can fully appreciate the class and the Shred di Moore technique, author of a long solo, on the false line of the famous “Eruption” “marked Van Halen. Touch of skill that is hit in the face by “in Fire”: crazy and splash, testifies to how Thorpe's band was able to touch more metal ropes without losing incisiveness and malice. Stylistic multiplicity also present in the dark Ballad signed “domestic bliss” where Moore is once again raising the ridge, thus leaving room for the final “Blistering Winds” the role of certifying the Power/Speed/Thrash scope of a group that, perhaps unjustly, has never found the right consecration.
Instead, the possibility of seeing them again remained, and the four Italian dates scheduled for next May are to be grasped on the fly.
Daniel D`Amico for SANREMO.FM
