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I had some previous exposure to the material on this album after seeing Vyndykator live at the Classic Metal Fest and also from the 3-song sampler, reviewed here a few months ago. After some delays, the album is finally out, with only one deception: It is quite on the short side, at a little less than 33 minutes, and this stuff is so good that you can't help but feel a bit sad when the album ends (gotta love the "Repeat" feature on CD players.) A couple of more songs throwing it in the 40-45 minutes range would have been perfect. Well, that's minor, but it still had to be said. :)

Vyndykator is fronted by ex-Attacker frontman Bob Mitchell, and some 20 years later he hasn't lost his mastery of the vocal chords, his piercing voice still able to wake up the dead (well, it does wake me up, that's close enough! :)) The vocals do take a bit of getting used to and may turn off some people at first, until you realise that this particular vocal style is perfectly fitting to the music. The vocal performance on the cover of Judas Priest's "Deceiver" is very good, and slightly different from the rest of the album.. Imagine a mix between Udo and Rob Halford! (Well, don't imagine, just buy the album!) The cover is preceeded by an instrumental song that leads you seemlessly into "Deceiver", you could almost think it's only one song where the vocals start only after some 4 minutes. Not leaving a silence between these two tracks was an excellent move. I can't believe I just praised the elimination of a 1-second silence but hey, stranger things have happened!

Musically Vyndykator can be categorised as heavy metal - as in classic, traditional heavy metal (for those who need a picture...) If I hear another dumbass call this stuff "power metal", I'm gonna go postal. A mix of such bands as Iron Maiden, Judas Priest, and also I found some guitar riffs to be very close to material from Sleepy Hollow (another one of Bob's former bands), and that can only mean one thing: Killer riffs. That's right, this is air guitar paradise. The guitars are razor-sharp and this stuff is heavy, so you end up feeling crushed by the sheer heaviness, yet can't resist banging your head against the walls. Some damn fine, effective metal presented here by a band of experienced musicians who have combined their past experiences to create a sound unique to Vyndykator. I could go on, but hell, I've been blabbering enough already. This one is a must-have, period.

Additional Information

- CD on Unisound Records
- LP and picture LP (image below) on Outlaw Recordings (available at http://www.outlawrecordings.net/)