Vicious Rumors – The Atlantic Years
Vicious Rumors – The Atlantic Years
Cherry Red Records
Release Date: 30/09/22
Running Time: 02:12:45
Review by Simon Black
8/10
Vicious Rumors are one another one of those acts that I was barely aware of back when these three disks were originally released. That’s probably in part because being signed to Atlantic Records during this period was no guarantee that the supposed global reach the label supposedly offered would necessarily come to fruition. At the time their UK division was known as East West Records and despite the Rock and Metal end of things being fronted by former Kerrang! writer turned A&R man Dante Bonutto, their relatively small department stuck in a basement in Kensington didn’t automatically pump out the PR for everything the American parent was running.
That was a pure business decision from Atlantic, who always sent clear instructions as to which acts to push into which territories, and when – with appropriate marketing budget. If an act on the parent label did well in the USA (say like Pantera did around the same time), then the word would come down, promotional budget would magically appear, and DJ’s and journalists would be spammed with 12” vinyl single promos and albums to get the word out and start building things from bottom up. If the word did not come down, then that territory would probably not know a thing about it, apart from a few lonely copies of the album sitting around the A&R office in case a specific request came in. That’s a damned shame, as Vicious Rumours were a massive part of what was going on in the Bay Area scene that spawned some of the kings of Thrash, including of course Atlantic label mates Testament (who did get the word from on high) and more than comparable quality wise.
The problem for Vicious Rumors, was that this was not long after the point of the Great Splintering of Metal into more sub-genres than you could shake a stick at, which the major labels more than most struggled to adapt to, and to which the Independents (like the one VR had just jumped ship from) were all over. We’d had in the decade before Hard Rock evolved into AOR; Metal evolved into NWOBHM, but at that point there were several clear market sectors for A&R departments to push. There were the ongoing traditional Heavy Metal acts still banging the drum, there was the highly commercial Hair and Glam scene and it’s angry counterpart Thrash, and other branches really had not fully registered yet in major label land. So, an act like this, which bizarrely seemed to straddle most of these and had a bunch of something else in there for good measure, must have been too much for them to wrap their heads around, and consequently they never got the marketing push that might have moved them up in the global stakes to have been a much bigger worldwide hit than they are and been strong enough to survive the tsunami that Grunge was about to unleash a few short years later.
Vicious Rumors for me fused perfectly the nascent USA variant of Power Metal with the attitude and aggression of Thrash / Speed Metal, with all the technical skill that those two naturally bring. Throw into that mix the formidable vocal talents of screamer Carl Albert and you had a very odd beast that worked very well – well enough for Atlantic to pick them up and effectively relaunch them across the whole of the USA and finally outside of California with the contents of this box set and consign their first two Shrapnel / Roadrunner releases (“Soldiers of the Night” and “Digital Dictator”) into obscurity. But not enough to get them a bigger push over here in Europe…
The 1990 album “Vicious Rumors” simultaneously does and does not feel like a debut. It’s got the fire, energy and aggression of a band that have been chomping at the bit in their new label stable, but at the same time it also feels a little bit like it’s also a difficult third child album, where the pre-record deal pot of songs had run a little dry, but the band were now under pressure to deliver. The consequence of that is that although skilfully delivered, things feel a little forced. Although their classic ‘Don’t Wait For Me’ comes to life for the first time here, the challenge is most of the material has the same tone and pace, so whilst blisteringly delivered, the songs can fuse into one furious mash up to the casual listener.
What saves the day is the lavish production and Albert’s incredible delivery, which rips, roars and sears its way into your brain indelibly (he made his debut with the band for “Digital Dictator”, which is why no-one talks about what went before…). I’m guessing there were commercial label pressures in this mix, but there’s some high-water marks too ‘Hellraiser’ and ‘Thrill Of The Hunt’ are fantastically relentless in their delivery, but these feel like they may have been left overs from the “Digital Dictator” sessions, or at least have been that little bit nearer writing completion by the time the shift to Atlantic happened, but the pressure to soften things is a force pushing in the opposite direction from what you would have expected from this band if you had heard either of their first records. This sounds more negative than it should though, because it was good enough to make me want to go and explore their back catalogue, and what it makes up for in song-writing whack-bang-wallop it makes up for in production polish, instrumental delivery … and those fantastic vocals.
“Welcome To The Ball” continues the evolution to a more commercial sound, but also adds some technical sophistication with it. Some more clever introductions and instrumental sections pepper this that illustrate the underlying skills here, and a clear indication that the song-writing is back where it needs to be. Switching the pace up helps the flow of the album, and it doesn’t feel so one directional as it’s predecessor. Despite the polish on the mixing desk, there’s a bit more roughness around the edges on the more Metal tracks, but this time without the Thrashy undertones in the song structures that typified their earlier albums.
However, I’m really not sure that the AOR-esque ballad ‘When Love Comes Down’ should have been allowed. Almost certainly this is at the label’s insistence, but it really doesn’t work at all and it sounds like 80’s radio fodder written for a completely different band. Bearing in mind that this is released in summer 1991, a month before Metallica’s self-titled bulldozer of an album commercially tears the world a new Heavy Metal asshole, whilst still sounding heavier than being sat on by a wall, so the timing of this insipid piece of radio marketing is rather unfortunate, and indeed somewhat lacking in the all-important “Vicious” aspects…
The final piece of this box puzzle is a live session recorded at Club Citta in Kawasaki, Japan. This eight-track piece has a fantastic amount of energy, despite clearly being recorded in quite a small venue, and the track list is largely comprised of material from the first two disks in this set, with the exception of ‘Lady Took A Chance’ from “Digital Dictator” (although the unnecessary drum and guitar solo mid-track dragging things out a full five minutes from the studio version does grate somewhat). The live versions give the material on “Vicious Rumours” a new lease of life though, away from the studio polish and you can see why they had such a great reputation in those days, giving the rest of the band a chance to shine, instead of taking a back seat to Albert’s presence on the studio recordings.
Sadly, not long after this, with the Metal music world in turmoil courtesy of Grunge, Vicious Rumors found themselves dumped by Atlantic and a new home on Germany’s SPV / Steamhammer and forced to lick their wounds and begin again. A relaunch sadly completely buttfucked by the tragic and ridiculously young death at the age of 32 of vocalist Carl Albert in a car accident.
Although the band carry on to this day and are graced with the formidable talents of Ronny Munroe these days, the reality is that period between 1988 and 1994 is their creative peak, and these three albums straddle perfectly. With a lavish remix and a really elegant bit of packaging and boxing courtesy of Cherry Red Records for this release, you can really see what the fuss was about, which despite my slight frustration at the commercial interventions of the label at the time, stands up remarkably well 30 years later. It got me listening, and it might do the same for you.
‘Don’t Wait For Me’ Official Video
TRACKLISTING:
1 – Vicious Rumors
01. Don’t Wait For Me
02. World Church
03. On The Edge
04. Ship Of Fools
05. Can You Hear It
06. Down To The Temple
07. Hellraiser
08. Electric Twilight
09. Thrill of the Hunt
10. Axe and Smash
2 – Welcome To The Ball
01. Abandoned
02. You Only Live Twice
03. Savior From Anger
04. Children
05. Dust To Dust
06. Raise Your Hands
07. Strange Behavior
08. Six Stepsisters
09. Mastermind
10. When Love Comes Down
11. Ends of the Earth
3 – Plug In And Hang On – Live in Tokyo
01. Abandoned (Live in Tokyo)
02. Savior From Anger (Live in Tokyo)
03. Down To The Temple (Live in Tokyo)
04. Ship of Fools (Live in Tokyo)
05. Lady Took A Chance (Live in Tokyo)
06. When Love Comes Down (Live in Tokyo)
07. March or Die (Live in Tokyo)
08. Don’t Wait For Me (Live in Tokyo)
LINE-UP:
Carl Albert – Lead Vocals, Backing Vocals
Geoff Thorpe – Guitars
Mark Mcgee – Guitars, Mandolin, Backing Vocals
Dave Starr – Bass
Larry Howe – Drums
LINKS:
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