VANDALLUS – Bad Disease

7/10

VANDALLUS - Bad Disease - 7/10

7/10

Summary

Pure Steel Records
Release date: September 28, 2018

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Bad Disease seems an incongruous title for Vandallus’s second album when coupled with the rather distracting cover art; the person featured seems quite healthy, physically at least. That said, three of the nine tracks—“Infected”, “Heart Attacker”, and the title track—give at least a lyrical nod to ailments of some sort, and so perhaps the title has more to do with the music than the image used to sell that music. The five members of Vandallus, hailing from the home of the Rock ‘n’ Roll Hall of Fame of Cleveland, Ohio, deliver a frill-free take on late seventies/early eighties Hard Rock. Despite some odd choices regarding the production—the bass and vocals are cranked up, leaving the drums and guitars buried in the mix—the songs are straight ahead Hard Rock pleasers. “Infected” opens things up with a catchy layered chorus reminiscent of early Dokken.

Vandallus are not afraid to let the music breathe, most of the songs like “Shock” and “Trash Talk’n” have spare instrumental breaks that carry listeners smoothly down sonic backroads. The bright guitars and bass-heavy mix make “Loaded” sound like an extra track from Kiss’s Dynasty or Unmasked; it’s one of the most appealing tracks on the record. Following “Loaded” is “Vandallus”, one of the faster, flashier cuts with some hints of early Tygers of Pan Tang, it’s a song worth of carrying the band name into battle. Vandallus save the best for last; the closing title cut is a blink-and-you-missed it three minute rocker that closes Bad Disease in fine fashion.

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Author

Daniel Waters

Daniel was a reviewer here at Metal Express Radio. Iron Maiden’s Piece Of Mind wasn’t the first Metal album he owned, but it was the one that lifted the lid off his soul when he received the record as a gift on his 15th birthday. He's been a Metal fan ever since. He's probably best known as the author of various Young Adult novels such as the Generation Dead series and the ghost story Break My Heart 1,000 Times, now also a major motion picture entitled I Still See You, starring Bella Thorne. Writing and music, especially Heavy Metal music, has always been inextricably linked in his mind and career. His first paid gig doing any type of writing was for Cemetery Dance, where he wrote a horror-themed music column called Dead Beats, and when he was writing the first Generation Dead novel he had a ritual where he started his writing day with a Metal playlist that kicked off with “Crushing Belial” by Shadows Fall.
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