Victory - Fuel To The Fire

*=Staff's pick	Standing Like A Rock* Don't Tell No Lies* Take The Pace Running Scared* Temples Of Gold Rock The Neighbours I Felt It Coming Backseat Rider Rock 'n' Roll Kids Rebel Ready* On The Lose Checks In The Mail* So They Run

Genre	Hard Rock	Jioti Parcharidis	Vocals
Tracks	13	Herman Frank	Guitar
Runningtime	52 Min.	Tommy Newton	Guitar
Label	Armageddon Music	Peter Knorn	Bass
Release	20 Jan. 2006	Fritz Randow	Drums
Country	Germany	-	Keyboards
Similar artists	Mötley Crüe

Germany's Victory have been around since the autumn 1984 and have been busy doing their american styled hard rock which aren't too far from the groovy rock that has been performed by Mötley Crüe through out the years. Fuel To The Fire isn't a new record in the true meaning of the word. It consists of thirteen songs, re-arranged and re-recorded with the modern techniques of today covering the whole era of the band. Call it a best of album, if you like. I don't know exactly how many fans there are out there, screaming for a product like this. I mean, songs that already been done and presented on an album for like ten or fifteen years ago don't seem like a fresh choice. But on the other hand you'll get all the goodies on one album and last but not least, a fresh and certainly a heavier sound.

Fuel To The Fire is produced by the two guitarists of the band, Tommy Newton and Herman Frank, at the Area 51 Studio, Celle, Germany. The later one of these gentlemen have a past in bands such as Accept and Sinner. Concerning the production and sound engineering, this album doesn't leave much to wish for. Good or perhaps great is the word for sound and everything about it on Fuel To The Fire. Very competent level setting on each instrument. Every tune are as clean as you could expect that a public toilet or the sidewalk in Singapore would be.

Over to the material then. Its about the same catchy driven model of hard rock that's been written by a certain Nikki Sixx on several occasions. I get Smoking in The Boy's Room vibes here and there. Checks In The Mail is a fantastic Mötley-like piece of song. Perhaps the hardest song on Fuel For The Fire, Rebel Ready are nothing but a well done flirt with Running Wild, at least the cool refrain and the rhythm section with its solos. Not to mention the Don't Tell No Lies that has a refrain that really summons genuine Kiss feelings. My vote on the best one on Fuel For The Fire will go to the Running Scared song. A extremely good and well composed metal song, plain and simple. A perfect ten, so to speak. With this in mind it gets harder and harder to put Victory in a certain genre box. Its no Iron Maiden metal nor any Judas Priest stuff, but it isn't all to soft either. The feeling of a crowded arena with cigarette lighters are never far away. But luckily for Victory they succeed to remain heavy even though they play their softest parts, well perhaps there are some really romantic times that I could live without but all in all I think Fuel For The Fire can work really well as easy listening hard rock. It doesn't demand to much of the listeners attention so it shouldn't be to difficult to swing a couple of beers and enjoy the good vocals from Jioti Parcharidis together with excellent guitar solos as they once were meant to sound. Listening to Fuel To The Fire is in the best times a real retro kick and not so bad as I first thought. In healthy doses Victory feels quite cool I guess.

Production	Vocals	Compositions
9	7	7

Summary
7 chalices of 10 - Tim