PlanetMosh Keeping it Metal
Bournemouth band Voodoo Vegas formed in 2006, and have spent the last few years touring as much as possible, both within the UK and in continental Europe, playing gigs in German, France, Belgium and Italy. Last year they launched a PledgeMusic campaign to raise funds to record their debut album. It says a lot about how big a fan base they have that the target was reached in less than 24 hours, and ending up reaching 344% of the original goal, which means that their nominated charity, Hope FM radio have benefited as well as the band having more funds available to record the album.
Never having listened to Voodoo Vegas until I was sent the album to review, I really didn’t know what to expect so it was really good to hit play and hear some superb music blasting out of the speakers.
Lawrence Case deserves special praise for the vocals – there is one obvious singer to compare him to – Axl Rose. Lawrence’s vocals really do sound like Axl Rose at times (and I’m talking late 80’s Axl Rose when he was at his peak rather than how he sounds these days). These are some seriously good hard rock vocals. The music is equally impressive – the guitar work in particular is excellent.
There’s a lot of variety in the songs too which means the album never gets dull. The whole album is really impressive, and it doesn’t feel like a debut album – it’s more the standard you’d expect from a second or third album, and I think this may be partly down to the fact that the band haven’t rushed to release an album within a year or so of starting, but instead have gained a lot of experience from playing live which has helped with the writing and recording of the album.
The album has 11 tracks, but from that you can really exclude Intro and Interlude which are both around 30 seconds long, so you’re looking at 9 songs with a total running time of around 33 minutes. It’s a little on the short side, but with the quality of the album then you don’t feel short-changed
Brief comments on a few tracks..
The opening song, “King without a crown” gets the album off to a great start – a good hard rock song with a powerful twin guitar sound and some excllent vocals.
“Bullet” is a song I’d love to hear live – it’s another great song with a strong catchy chorus that I can see going down superbly well at gigs.
“Mary Jane” is another superb tracks – one of my favourite songs on the album.
“Lost in confusion” started life as a letter to the woman who jilted singer Lawrence Case at the altar. The song is a slower song, and it’s powerful emotional lyrics give a hint of the emotional pain he must have felt at the time. Towards the end of the song he is joined on vocals by Stevie Vann Lange who’s soaring vocals have previously graced albums by bands including Def Leppard and Mannfred Man’s Earth Band. The song doesn’t feel at all bitter, unlike the next track “So unkind” which has lyrics about an ex including the line “Why do you keep on lying, why the hell did you mess me around”.
This really is a superb album – there’s not a single weak track on it
“The rise of Jimmy Silver” will be released on 4th March 2013 via Cargo records
Rating 9.5/10
Track listing:
1. Intro
2. King without a crown
3. Bullet
4. No more
5. What I pay
6. Interlude
7. Mary Jane
8. Ferry song
9. Lost in confusion
10. So unkind
11. Jimmy Silver
Voodoo vegas are:
Lawrence Case – Vocals/Harmonica
Nick Brown – Guitar/Acoustic Guitar
Merylina Hamilton – Guitar
Ash Moulton – Bass
Matt Jolly – Drums
