Label: SPV/Steamhammer Records
Release date: August 21, 2020
Production: Geoff Thorpe & Juan Urteaga
Album length: 46:52 min.
Genre: Speed Metal/ Thrash Metal
Rating: 9.0/10
A brand-new Vicious Rumors album, and what an album it is. Those who know the band’s cult years with singer Carl Albert and its last fifteen years of activity know exactly what I’m talking about, and they’ve probably already been asking around about buying it. This long-lived band has stuck it out on the international scene since 1979, thanks to the bulletproof lionheartedness of its chieftain, leader and guitarist Geoff Thorpe. Vicious Rumors are indestructible precisely because of Geoff’s devotion, faith and defiant perseverance. Why such a sensationalist intro?
Not long ago the band went through another serious shake-up of the lineup. Alongside Thorpe, the irreplaceable drummer and Geoff’s partner in crime since the very beginning, the priceless Larry Howe, stayed put. Everyone else on the new album “Celebration Decay” is a newcomer. 21-year-old Gunnar Dügrey, whom Geoff took a shine to when he was still just eighteen, is a real discovery. Think Luka Dončič for the NBA. With singer Nick Courtney, Geoff has landed a fantastic vocalist who has the required measure of unbridled explosiveness, develops tremendous power and vocal authority, and carries it effortlessly from the mid-range up to the highest registers. Compared with Brian Allen, the Vicious Rumors singer who, with his comings and goings, has defined the band’s last decade more than anyone, his voice isn’t so “Halford-like.” While still extremely aggressive in its stance, it’s more “Dickinson-like,” which means it actually evokes the not-so-distant feelings left behind on the timeless albums of the band’s early era by the one and only, unforgettable Carl Albert. And the sonic refreshments don’t end there. The bass duties went to Swede Robin Utbolt, which means the lineup has kept its international character even after 2013, when Slovenian bass hero Tilen Hudrap joined. After our ace jumped ship to U.D.O. in the fall of 2018, Cody Green, who is basically a guitarist, helped the band out on bass at gigs. As a special guest on the band’s new album, he contributed two guitar solos. And the guest spots keep coming. Greg Christian, known for his work with Trauma and Testament, also chipped in some thunderous guest bass lines.
When it comes to the guitar department, “Celebration Decay” delivers some seriously fascinating moments, regardless of the proven excellence of the members who teamed up with Thorpe on previous releases this millennium. Some of them even bring back the days of the unforgettable Thorpe and Mark McGee partnership. There’s no messing around with young Dügrey, and it’s more than obvious that the refreshed lineup fired Thorpe up even more, so he tackled everything with maximum, fully committed enthusiasm. The result is a fresh, varied album, bursting at the seams with an extremely dark, doomy and dystopian atmosphere. It leaves behind neither survivors nor the unpunished. The album conjures up a hefty dose of tracks that stand for the classic Vicious Rumors attitude and charisma, such as “Pulse Of The Dead,” “Arrival Of Desolation,” “Death Eternal” and “Collision Course Disaster.” On the other hand, the band surprised us with moments like “Darkness Devine,” where it went into shaping more ambitiously experimental structures, once again successfully testing itself in the exploration of uncharted musical horizons.
“Celebration Decay” is a true Vicious Rumors album from head to toe. The reference is to the not-so-distant last fifteen years of the “resurrection” of old-school Bay Area madness that runs in their veins, and during which, with this new album included, Vicious Rumors have put out their last five records. The guitars are razor sharp. The energy is bestial, at absolute boiling point and nuclear devastation the whole way through. Alongside Courtney’s superb vocal execution, the drama and theater get deepened by Geoff too, who takes over a few vocal lines and helps Courtney build up the atmosphere of individual tracks. “Celebration Decay” will make every Vicious Rumors fan’s heart race. It’s incredibly varied, with the real, recognizable swagger of this inexhaustible band’s great musical charisma, and this time, more than ever, it blends elements from the late eighties, meaning the retrospective era of the cult first three releases, with the maturity, experience and aesthetics of handling the magic of metal in a modern way for new times. “Celebration Decay” is a mirror of the remarkable transformation of the old-school American “old school speed/thrash metal” from the Bay Area cradle, brimming with bravura power at every step of its running time. Dystopian vistas are a theme that has long come naturally to Geoff. Unconditionally so. And this time around he poured his inner disappointment with all the madness of humanity into his guitar phrases in an especially extreme and ferocious way. As caustic and uncompromising as it gets.
Given how short-lived this lineup is, the band has developed incredible chemistry on this album. You can feel the huge mileage behind them, with more than a hundred shows last year, on which they played the whole of “Digital Dictator.” An album that already proved itself downright visionary back in 1988. Yes! The album is thrilling. It’s the result of an exceptional cohesiveness that the band fully developed in a relatively short time, probably thanks to all those shows played last year. Because, simply put, it’s bursting with catchy, high-octane voltage that only a crew with brilliant mutual awareness can generate. It’s a blend of the outstanding technical prowess of the individual players and a collective magnification of that technical element, through, as mentioned, incredible creative inspiration in realizing all the new ideas. The songs are a brilliant mix of catchy punch and atmospheric upheavals, generated by a string of varied motifs, glued together in the transitions with all the vividness of Howe’s mighty rhythmic wrecking-ball force, wit and, of course, great seasoning.
Enough said! Old-school metal for new times and for eternity. The Bay Area legends don’t do surrender. Quite the opposite. They radiate fire, wildness and a frighteningly bestial commitment, delivering one of this year’s strongest, most charismatic and, in the end, most beautiful and truest-to-form albums, crafted in the old-school manner of that one-of-a-kind American school of metal.
Author: Aleš Podbrežnik
Tracklist:
Celebration Decay (4:31)
2. Pulse Of The Dead (4:08)
3. Arrival Of Desolation (5:42)
4. Any Last Words (3:34)
5. Asylum Of Blood (4:11)
6. Darkness Divine (4:49)
7. Long Way Home (3:48)
8. Cold Blooded (4:23)
9. Death Eternal (3:44)
10.Collision Course Disaster (3:31)
11. Masquerade Of Good Intentions (4:48)
Lineup:
Nick Courtney – vocals
Geoff Thorpe – guitar
Gunnar Dügrey – guitar
Robin Utbult – bass
Larry Howe – drums
Guest musicians:
Cody Green – guitar
Greg Christian – bass
