VISION DIVINE – Send Me An Angel

Moving a little away from the typical Italian speed metal thing that has been overdone and over-hyped the last few years – due to the success of bands like Labyrinth and Rhapsody – Vision Divine releases their second CD, the follow-up to the enthusiastically acclaimed self titled debut. If this band is new to you, let me inform you that it consists of Rhapsody’s singer Fabio Lione, as well as the instrumental part of Labyrinth, with the exception of guitar player Anders Rain. This is where Fabio gets the chance to sing about more important issues than dragons and swords of steel, and this is where Olaf Thorsen can relax and work his way without having people knocking on the door asking if the record is as good as “Return To Heaven Denied”. This is simply a heavy metal record that kind of takes the listener 10 years back in time – and that’s NOT a bad thing – where music was developed from the great late 80’s and lyrics were more philosophical than hairspray issues.
“Send Me An Angel”, the title track, is indeed my favorite, but watch out for “Pain”, “Away From You” and a couple of others as well – not forgetting the cover of a-ha’s “Take On Me”, which proves that the 80’s also had good pop music. Before I let you go and find out for yourself, let me just mention that Olaf Thorsen does great guitar work on this release. No wonder why every Italian wannabe next big thing band asks him to help out in the studio…