Author: Aleš Podbrežnik
Artist: Vicious Rumors
Label: SPV Records
Released: 2013
Running time: 47:22
Rating: 3.5/5
“Electric Punishment” is the eleventh studio album overall from the legendary Bay Area heavy (speed/thrash) metallers Vicious Rumors. It came out at the end of April 2013, and in terms of musical vision it cements the position the band began staking out again with the album »Warball« in 2006, when they stopped messing around with experiments that had cost them more than they’d gained. After the excellent predecessor »Razorblade Killers« (2011), the story carries on, and the band’s rebirth continues with the album »Electric Punishment«.
The follow-up to »Razorback Killers« is a slightly different record. If you’re a diehard fan of old-school American speed/thrash metal, let me hint that “Electric Punishment” brings a few mild deviations that might cool you off a little, but that’s no reason at all to throw in the towel too early. Geoff Thorpe, the unstoppable leader of the band, has always been a musician who liked to try out different things in his music. But there are no experimental shenanigans this time that would drag the band back toward some goofy, abstract groove metal niches. What we get is a flirtation with their musical roots, meaning the music that shaped metal the way Vicious Rumors have always played it.
The return of the exceptional guitar virtuoso Thean Rasmussen to the lineup has definitely enriched the compositions, especially in the transitional embellishments and, above all, in the wittily carved-out solo escapades, which bring one of the most appealing elements of Vicious Rumors’ music to the new album. That element is thrilling from start to finish. Word has it that Geoff Thorpe had trouble with his fingers while recording, so he called in his buddy Bob Capka for help. Capka helped play the solos that should originally have been Thorpe’s. It almost goes without saying that Thorpe’s two great friends and former bandmates Brad Gillis (Night Ranger) and Mark McGhee guest with their guitar contributions on this album too.
So. Electric Punishment opens ominously. Aggressive, uncompromising. The opening I Am the Guin and, right behind it, Black X List dictate the course of events in a breakneck, accelerated gallop. The fastest track on the record, though, is the bloodthirsty speed/thrash metal pulsator D-Block. Thirst For a Kill, which rushes in near the end of the album, is relentless too, and in structure and energy it could easily swap places with I Am the Gun as the album opener. Madness! The cannon barrage of Larry Howe’s double bass drum pedals, unyielding riffing, razor-sharp, hair-splittingly precise solos commanded by an incredible control of the instruments, and over it all the piercing vocals of the incredible screamer Brian Allen, a man inspired by the character and work of great singers like Rob Halford (Judas Priest) and also Ronnie James Dio. The band is brutally fired up as a unit.
The first hints of Thorpe’s flirtation with musical roots come with the title track, led by a disguised Black Sabbath-style riff, while the band masterfully airs out the song in its instrumental middle section, where the guitarists trade some crazy solo passages. The track Escape, the third song on the album to clock in at six minutes, works at its core as a hybrid with a punchy old-school hard rock ballad, soaked in the production instincts of Geoff Thorpe and Juan Urteaga. An interesting move here is called Together We Unite. It’s a “rewritten” hard rock anthem built on an optimistic melody. It’s driven by major chords, but the arrangements are definitely staked out on the Vicous Rumors speed/thrash metal “template.” It’s the track on the album that will surely rub metal purists the wrong way. The rolling, highly atmospheric Eternally also unfolds in a dark, numb, cold and alienated way, veering away from the band’s typical musical vision, with extraordinary guitar solos spicing up the middle sections. This guitar addition breathes constantly interesting developments into the song, all the way to its end. The closing Strange Ways can also be counted among the lighter-sounding tracks, but with Thorpe’s vocals it works great in its dark payoff. Right at the tail end of the album, in other words. Thorpe pitches in with a serious vocal contribution on the album this time too. Whether he’s doubling Allen’s vocals or even taking the lead, it all thickens the sound, lifts the album’s dynamics and amplifies its dramatic course (the so-called »drama theater«).
As a whole, the album works. From head to toe. It’s not as uncompromisingly, snarlingly hard, furious, aggressive and destructive all over as its seriously pissed-off predecessor »Razorback Killers« (2011), which all the true believers in metal immediately claimed as their own. »Electric Punishment« is exactly what Thorpe wanted: to make a slightly different record that’s still the real Vicious Rumors deal. And that’s what Electric Punishment is. At the same time, it doesn’t disappoint with its fresh, excellent production, a massive thicket of detonating sounds of absolute destruction, as the old-school craft of these untamed pioneers of American speed/thrash metal is known in modern times! Vicious Rumors are pushing on with it, unstoppable.
The album’s release was followed by a tour with Seven Witches and Power Theory. On it, Rassmussen was replaced in the lineup by Bob Capka, and bassist Stephen Goodwin by none other than the Slovenian musician Tilen Hudrap. But that’s a new story, which we’ll save for the band’s upcoming new studio album, announced for the end of this August!
Vicious Rumors – I Am the Gun (official video):
Lineup
Brian Allen – vocals
Geoff Thorpe – guitar, vocals, backing vocals
Thean Rasmussen – guitar
Stephen Goodwin – bass guitar
Larry Howe – drums
GUEST MUSICIANS:
Bob Capka – guitar
Brad Gillis – guitar
Mark McGhee – guitar
Production
Geoff Thorpe & Juan J. Urteaga
Track list
1. I Am the Gun
2. Black X List
3. Electric Punishment
4. D-Block
5. Escape (From Hell)
6. Dimestore Prophet
7. Together We Unite
8. Eternally
9. Thirst For a Kill
10. Strange Ways
