Metal Mind Productions
Wallner and Vain, though sounding like the first act at an end-of-the-pier variety show, are in fact very well connected musicians indeed. The list of contributors to this debut album reads like a Who’s Who of late 20th century rawk. It seems a chance meeting by the duo with Carmine and Vinnie Appice in LA’s legendary Rainbow Bar & Grill led to the brothers offering not only their own prodigious talents on drums but those of all their mates too. Rudy Sarzo (Quiet Riot), Jimmy Bain (Rainbow), Brian Tichy (Whitesnake) Tony Franklin (Jimmy Page) Derek Sherinian (Alice Cooper) and Tony Carey (Rainbow) all pitched up at various stages with their large reputations to lay down small and medium sized contributions to the nine tracks before us.
There was always a chance that so much incendiary ego and hairspray in one place would produce a combustible mixture. But whilst the music certainly catches fire, the vocal performance is more of a damp squib.
Will Wallner, an English virtuoso guitarist, currently touring with White Wizzard, puts in an accomplished and polished performance here. The licks and chops on ‘Streets of Rage’ and ‘All That I Want’ are top class; the intro to ‘Soul Monster’ and the outro to ‘Miles Ahead’ quicken the pulse a little; ‘The Dream/Dreamstealer’ is a muscular, driving and multi-layered tour de force where Tony Carey’s keys add a quality touch of colour and texture. There are fillers though. Fourteen Twenty Eight is laboured and sounds like fretwork by numbers.
But Vivien Vain’s vocals take the album down a whole star. Harsh, I know. At best she is a powerful, forcefully nasal Doro Pesch type, as on the album closer ‘Indestructible’ At worst she screeches and howls with enough discordant disrespect to rattle every filling in my mouth. The top register, caterwauling delivery is not what is needed to emphasise the quality of the music. She is not my cup of tea. A point underlined in thick marker pen by ‘Soul Monster’, where she takes a break from the mike. The lead vocalist here is uncredited – either Will Wallner or one of the legion of guest musos. Whoever it is may not be perfect, but the whole track has a better balance and bigger impact.
An interesting foot note is that Vivien managed to bring together Tony Carey and bassist Jimmy Bain on a track for the first time since the epic Rainbow Rising in 1976. It may be that Ms Vain’s true talent lies on the production rather than the performance side…
***
Dave Atkinson
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Power Plays w/c 9 December 2024
In this sequence we play ‘The Best of 2024′ GRTR! reviewer selections
Featured Albums w/c 9 December 2024
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