Label: Frontiers Music Srl.
Release date: 9/17/2021
Production: Vega
Length: 48.43 min
Genre: Melodic Rock / Hard Rock
Rating: 8.5/10
Vega are a British hard rock and melodic rock outfit, a crew of seasoned, battle-hardened musicians with a clearly defined musical vision. They’ve been at it for almost 15 years now and have honed their craft to perfection, which means every new album comes with a quality guarantee. And mind you, we’re talking about Brits here, guys who have firmly wandered into their mid-fifties. They deliver the very point of hard rock, a kind of successor to the lively pulse of AOR and the eighties hard rock that flourished across the British Isles back then. In their revivalist recycling, they don’t bring any musical revolution, but Vega maintain exceptional integrity and credibility.
Since we’ve all been stuck living life under the Covid-19 cloud for almost two years now, Vega were also banned from playing live. So they focused on writing new original material. Last year brought “Grit Your Teeth” (2020, RockLine review), and a good year later it was followed by “Anarchy And Unity”, the band’s seventh studio album overall. In the meantime there was a shake-up in the lineup, with new guitarist Billy Taylor, who jumped ship from fellow Brits Inglorious, and drummer Pete Newdeck, whom many of you know from Nitrate and Midnight City, joining the crew. The rest of the sextet is still filled out by the all-important frontman Nick Workman, guitarist Marcus Thurston, and brothers James and Tom Martin, who handle keyboards (James) and bass (Tom).
Unlike “Grit Your Teeth”, “Anarchy And Unitiy” feels a touch darker at times, with more of the melodies running through their main motifs in a minor key, so it doesn’t spark the kind of ‘party time’ moment you’d expect from the band and that its predecessor radiated. Anarchy And Unitiy has a few seriously strong spots that brim with pomp and hungry musicality, starting right with the opener, Beautiful Lie, which kicks in with one of the most fiery and catchy riffs on the album. At times that darker streak is especially pronounced in the tracks backed by snarling, in-your-face phrasing, as in Bring The Riot, one of the album’s heaviest cuts. Ain’t Who I Am also unfolds in this kind of theatrical pomp, where the combination of instant, under-the-skin catchiness generated by the musicality and the build-up of moods, climaxing in a crushing chorus melody, is fascinating. In the second half, Glow comes within a hair’s breadth of both tracks in terms of vibe.
The rest of the album also revels in a swaggering haul of rustling, finely tuned arrangement stew, in which the guitar riffs, keyboards and a sturdy rhythm section find a high level of harmony. Above it all, once again, we have to single out Nick Workman’s top-notch vocal performance, which gives not only the songs but the band as a whole the essential elements that build the expressive character of this very high-quality, experienced group. Needless to add, a key building block of those sky-high moods is the excellent design and arrangement of the multi-part harmonic vocal lines that accompany Nick Workman’s lead vocals. The tail end of the album is worth singling out too, first with Had Enough, with its prominent AOR moment, thanks above all to the sound of ‘eighties’ synths, and then the closer 2Die4, a thrilling moment of pop rhetoric hanging out with the character of eighties hard rock, which means it brings the album a bigger expressive detour, though one that won’t surprise anyone familiar with the band.
In a single year the band came up with a whopping twelve brand-new original songs, which is a lot, but given the quality of the tracks, it still means Vega are keeping their songwriting form more than enviably sharp. The result is another impressive Vega album that doesn’t surprise in the slightest. The band stays strong at what they do best. They cling tightly to a songwriting formula that deals them a winning poker hand of aces, and this time is no different. “Anarchy And Unity” is another more-than-excellent studio achievement from Vega, and one that their followers should absolutely have in their album collection.
Author: Aleš Podbrežnik
Tracklist:
1. Beautiful Lie
2. Sooner Or Later
3. End Of The Fade
4. Ain’t Who I Am
5. Welcome To Wherever
6. Bring The Riot
7. Live For Me
8. Kneel To You
9. Glow
10. C’mon
11. Had Enough
12. 2Die4
Lineup:
Nick Workman – vocals
Tom Martin – bass
James Martin – keyboards
Marcus Thurston – guitar
Billy Taylor – guitar
Pete Newdeck – drums
