Author: Aleš Podbrežnik
Artist: Vicious Rumors
Label: SPV Records
Release: 2012
Length: 55:51
Rating: 4/5
Since 1979, Vicious Rumors, legendary champions of the old school of American speed metal, have been fighting for metal honor and for their lineup!
The years roll on, and the band, in its various incarnations, has lived through plenty of tragedies that looked like they’d finish it off for good. But it got back up. Thanks to the unbending will of its leader and chieftain Geoff Thorpe. Vicous Rumors lineups have always been the textbook case of instability in the metal world. People came and went. Only one man stayed. Geoff Thorpe, that is. Well, Thorpe has finally found in singer Brian Allen a partner he can get along with for the long haul. The guy joined the band in 2009 (before that he cut his teeth in Last Empire, Malice and Wild Dogs), and the band soon had its hands full. If any year was, then »the metal year 2011« passed under the banner of Vicious Rumors. In 2011 they put out a new studio album, »Razorback Killers« (RockLine review HERE), a fantastic studio document that can proudly stand shoulder to shoulder at any moment with the band’s famous works from between 1986 and 1992. In that very same year, 2011, Vicious Rumors played Slovenia twice. On their own headline tour we caught them in May 2011 on the stage of Ljubljana’s Orto bar (RockLine report HERE), and at the end of the year Swedish power metal champions HammerFall took them under their wing for the European leg of their new tour, so Vicious Rumors showed up in Ljubljana a second time, playing CUK Kino Šiška (RockLine report HERE).
Why such an intro? Because the band’s third official live release, »Live You To Death«, comes from that very same tour with HammerFall, recorded at venues in Germany. Considering how damn hard it is to get hold of the band’s classic studio albums, this document is a more than welcome release from SPV Records.
This single live album is a manifesto, a first-rate lesson in old-school-flavored American metal of the ossified kind, which has survived through the decades into new times and, in its vampirism, reached voltage levels that make your metal ears bleed with gratitude. Razor-sharp guitars don’t hide Thorpe’s eternal obsession with the legacy of Judas Priest, as a duet of guitar harmonies in thirds majestically swoops into the deadly waltz of the opener Replica (which owes more than a little thanks to Priest’s The Hellion). The joke fades in an instant when the beast breaks off its chain and the guitar phrases go berserk in the unforgettable stampede of the band’s one-of-a-kind classic Digital Dictator. Allen did a magnificent job. He confidently pulls off the role of the screamer, taking the best of Rob Halford and gratefully filling the hard-to-fill gap left in the band after its original singer Carl Albert tragically died in a car crash in the mid-nineties. The only thing that bothers is that Thorpe’s backing vocals are mixed too loud, which at times smothers Brian Allen’s otherwise excellent, expressive vocal power. Well, chieftain Thorpe has to be noticed at all times, so his ego demands.
With riffs from a discography that the far more successful HammarFall can only dream of, Vicious Rumors modestly crammed nine of their own songs onto a single disc, the same number they played at their December 2011 show in Ljubljana. How sad that such a great band has stayed so small and its output so unjustly overlooked. Bands like today’s HammerFall actually learned from Vicious Rumors.
Enough lamenting. The band tacked two studio versions of their own covers of Black Sabbath and Judas Priest onto the end of the album. The first purpose is simply to fill space on the disc. But in an interview the guys will happily explain to you that this move is their tribute to the music giants who had a fateful influence on the musical character and work of Vicious Rumors. For some it’s surely an unnecessary move, since the covers offer nothing special, nothing not yet tried. The band simply plays great, Allen simply sings great. We already know all that. The covers are very good, but why didn’t the guys rather include an older live recording on this release, or a recording from the spring 2011 tour? They surely keep some in the archives.
Lineup
Brian Allen – vocals
Geoff Thorpe – guitar, backing vocals
Thaen Rasmussen – guitar
Stephen Goodwin – bass guitar
Larry Howe – drums
Production
Geoff Thorpe
Tracklist
01. Replicant / Digital Dictator
02. Minute To Kill
03. Murderball
04. Lady Took A Chance ( intro ) / Down To The Temple
05. Abandoned
06. Let The Garden Burn
07. Hellraiser
08. Soldiers Of The Night
09. Don’t Wait For Me
10. Sign Of The Southern Cross*
11. Running Wild**
*… Black Sabbath cover
**… Judas Priest cover
