Vicious Rumors - Electric Punishment

Published May 01 2013

*=Staff's pick	I Am The Gun* Black X List* Electric Punishment D-Block* Escape (From Hell)* Dime Store Prophet Together We Unite Eternally Thirst For A Kill Strange Ways

Genre	Heavy Metal	Brian Allen	Vocals
Tracks	10	Geoff Thorpe	Guitar
Running time	48 Min.	Thean Rasmussen	Guitar
Label	Steamhammer/SPV	Stephen Goodwin	Bass
Release	29 April 2013	Larry Howe	Drums
Country	USA	-	Keyboard
Producer	Juan Urteaga, Geoff Thorpe
Similar artists	Exodus, Iced Earth

With over three decades in the business and with twenty-eight years since the debut Soldiers Of The Night, Geoff Thorpe and his Vicious Rumors are still going strong. The new record Electric Punishment offers hard riffing traditional heavy metal with pieces of thrash involved. Old school is a washed out epithet, but this music is certainly lurking somewhere in its whereabouts.

The first half of the album represents mostly straight metal songs following each other in a rapid pace. I Am The Gun and Black X List are faster and meaner tracks and somewhat like heavy metal meets Exodus. The title track, Electric Punishment, has a heavy approach and D-Block offers heavy thrash elements. Perhaps it's not a ballad by its true meaning, but Escape (From Hell) has a serene verse and an emotional chorus. It picks up tempo closer to the end and I like the lead guitar parts. With Dime Store Prophet we're back on square one again with heavy riffs.

This is where most fun ends. Track number 7, Together We Unite is spirited, but I don't like the groove and it feels goofy. Eternally feels just boring, soggy and unbecoming. Back to heavy metal again with Thirst For A Kill and this should have been track number 7 and the two previous songs should have ended up as b-sides. A cover version of Kiss' Strange Ways closes the album. A version that is more cool than great.

All in all, the overall rating ends up at 5 chalices. A few tracks are rather good, yet some aren't. They certainly are able to create good music, but they don't reach all the way obviously. If the album had continued with the same satisfactory style as the first half, the score would at least have been one grade higher.