Author: Aleš Podbrežnik
Artist: Vicious Rumors
Label: SPV Records
Release: 2011
Runtime: 51:28
Rating: 4/5
Vicious Rumors are back. Five years after their last studio album, “Warball”, the band’s tenth studio record, “Razorback Killers”, came out at the end of this March. After a decade branded by three botched releases and a whole bag of ill-fated sonic and stylistic experiments, “Warball” signaled in 2006 that the time of renaissance had come for Vicious Rumors too.
A five-year gap between the last two releases is no small thing. And yet things apparently couldn’t have moved any faster. For the new album, bandleader Geoff Thorpe turned the Vicious Rumors lineup completely upside down once again. The only one he kept was original drummer Larry Howe. Still, the years slipping quietly by have finally sobered up Thorpe’s head too, so the man decided to let Vicious Rumors sail toward a new renaissance bloom and stick with the musical direction set out on “Warball”. If Helstar, Heathen, Forbidden, Exodus, Anthrax and Testament can pull it off with new albums, why shouldn’t Vicious Rumors be able to play the nostalgia card too?
So we can say that “Razorback Killers” is the first album since “Welcome To The Ball” that draws musical parallels with the band’s golden era, roughly the decade between 1985 and 1995. Geoff Thorpe has not only kept the turn toward the traditional old-school American “speed metal” figure that “Warball” hinted at. He even managed to finally pour his years of flirting with modern trends in sound production into that old-school mold, which, alongside the traditional “speed metal” drive, naturally also evokes the foundations of “Bay Area thrash” metal. Counting them as part of that movement, even though Vicious Rumors hail from San Francisco, isn’t quite right though, since Vicious Rumors appeared on the scene back in 1979, when people approached metal a little differently.
“Razorback Killers” is a superb album. The production is outstanding, with Juan Urteaga behind the mixing desk this time, who also produced the latest Heathen album and the previous Vicious Rumors record, for example. So it’s raw, extremely loud and, as the album title hints, devastating! The album pulses with life, and the building blocks of the sound are cranked up to the extreme and sharply contrasted. The tearing, rattling bass guitar is clearly audible throughout, and Larry Howe’s phenomenal work hits triumphant peaks in the virtuoso rolling fills and the venomous double bass drum pedal work – the smasher Right Of Devastation is the perfect title for it. The riff embrace feels venomous and incinerating, building a massive wall of sound. Laid over it are twin harmonies in thirds and/or razor-sharp guitar “licks” that deepen the doomy, dramatic atmosphere (the moments of captured mood at points on the album feel downright “wicked”), and it’s impossible to escape the stunning lead-guitar shredding of the Thorpe/Morgan duo, which thrills across the whole running time of this album.
Brian Allen is a vocalist this kind of album more than demands. On top of that, of all the Vicious Rumors singers so far, his voice is the closest vocal match to the late Carl Albert. In the mid-range, Allen unleashes tremendous power. Pearl Of Wisdom is an example of a song built on a thrashy lead riff that Bay Area fans will fall in love with instantly, and a case where Allen shows most clearly why he earned his spot as the Vicious Rumors vocalist. In the mid-range his vocal turns snarling and devastating, then in the chorus he pierces the listener’s ears with a few extreme, top-notch “screams” that quickly bring to mind Rob Halford (Judas Priest) or Ralf Scheepers (Primal Fear).
On the songs All I Want Is You and Let The Garden Burn, Geoff Thorpe also allowed himself two lead vocal excursions. His voice sounds extremely confident. It’s clear that Geoff has gained experience over the years and has progressed in his delivery overall, especially when we remember his poor vocal performance on the album “Sometnihg Burning” (1996). Geoff mostly contributes backing vocals as welcome filler, which nicely reveals the dynamics of the songs. Allen’s lead vocals are often backed by layered vocals with the effect of street-gang shouting, so-called “gang screams”, which is typical of the old-school elements of speed and thrash metal. All of it serves the apocalyptic visions that the lyrics of “Razorback Killers” string together.
An interesting bunch of excellent musicians guest on this album. The solos and harmonies in thirds for the songs Bloodstained Sunday and Pearl Of Wisdom come from former Vicious Rumors guitarist Mark McGee. The ravenous showdown with masterpieces of solo acrobatics seems to have no end when Testament’s “most holy” guitarist Eric Peterson lets rip in the song Murderball, and likewise in Deal With The Devil, where Night Ranger guitarist Brad Gillis joins the party with a solo. The latter also worked briefly with Vicious Rumors.
The new Vicious Rumors album is exactly what we’ve been looking for from Vicious Rumors all these years. They’ve delivered an album that is the most authentic return to the band’s golden era, while at the same time sounding thoroughly modern in its sonic solutions for the 21st century. “Razorback Killers” is also an extremely fluid album that doesn’t tolerate awkwardly stitched-together motifs, which couldn’t yet be said entirely of “Warball”. Across the whole running time we can fully enjoy a ravenous, authentic blend of old American speed metal craft and the elements of the Bay Area thrash metal movement. All of it, of course, knitted together under the baton of genuine Vicious Rumors magic. And in the glow of modern production solutions, which gives the album its own distinctive expressive stamp. So this is an album that is a musical one-off, unlike anything Vicious Rumors have offered up to this day. Let’s just hope Thorpe keeps this lineup by his side, strikes while the iron is hot, and sticks with the band on the path charted by the album “Razorback Killers”.
This album simply can’t be bad. It’s the work of a bunch of seasoned old tomcats who have gone after exactly the stuff they do best!
Lineup
Brian Allen – vocals
Geoff Thorpe – guitar, backing vocals
Kiyoshi Morgan – guitar
Stephen Goodwin – bass guitar
Larry Howe – drums
Production
Geoff Thorpe & Juan J. Urteaga
Track List
1. Murderball (4:09)
2. Razorback Blade (4:15)
3. Black (6:01)
4. Bloodstained Sunday (5:52)
5. Pearl of Wisdom (6:34)
6. All I Want is You (4:28)
7. Axe to Grind (3:37)
8. Let the Garden Burn (5:08)
9. Right of Devastation (4:23)
10. Deal with the Devil (7:08)
