Customer Reviews

Soldiers of the Night

5 star:		(4)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Vicious Rumor's "Soldiers of the Night" is considered a heavy metal classic by those who remember the early days of American power metal. The band's debut featured the dual guitar talents of Geoff Thorpe and Vinnie Moore. Geoff would continue to wave the Vicious Rumors flag for decades to come, while Vinnie Moore quickly moved on to a solo career, and later to become the lead guitarist of the legendary UFO. Vocalist Gary St. Pierre was formerly a member of Marty Friedman's band Hawaii before joining Vicous Rumors. Of course St. Pierre would also leave the band before their next album, and was replaced by Carl Albert, the man who is known as the voice of Vicious Rumors. Rounding out the band was bassist Dave Starr and drummer Larry Howe, who along with Thorpe continued on with Vicious Rumors after this release.

The band's sound here is traditional heavy metal, adding in just enough speed and fury to have been thrown into the speed/power metal school of metal (not unlike early Metal Church). Certainly no one would mistake Vicious Rumors for a thrash band, but they did have some elements from the genre as well. Besides the speed of songs like "In Fire", there is also the barked out background vocals that became a trademark for thrash in the 80's. What really helps set this album up above the pack is the incredible guitar duo. Moore and Thorpe just let loose with some tasty licks and tricks. However, while the guitar soloing certainly is a highlight, it's not some much so that it overshadows the songs themselves. There is even a guitar instrumental titled "Invader" which takes a huge influence from Van Halen's "Eruption". Frankly, Soldiers of the Night would probably fall into the same shred category as early Cacophony, Racer X, CJSS and arguably Whitecross. (Of course, Cacophony and Whitecross wouldn't release and album until a year later. Racer X's "Street Lethal" and CJSS "World Gone Made" came out the same year.) Other bands of comparison would be Helstar and possibly Jag Panzer's "Ample Destruction".

"Soldiers of the Night" is classic heavy metal. Any headbanger worth their faded Iron Maiden tour shirt and torn jeans would do well to have this in their collection, especially now that it's been remastered and reissued on CD for the first time since the collectible Price Killer series. Unfortunately the packaging is a cheap digi pack with no booklet, though the original liner notes and cover art are included.

As influential as Vicious Rumors was, particularly on the thrash scene, you'd think they would get a bit more recognition. As it stands, it seems like only the true metal faithful give this band the credit they deserve.

1985's Soldiers of the Night was the band's debut album, and while it's pretty far removed from the classic thrashy Vicious Rumors sound (circa Welcome to the Ball), it's still one of my favorite Vicious Rumors albums. It's just drenched in that early 80's American power metal sound that I love, bringing to mind Armored Saint, Omen, Malice, and Warlord. The album is also noteworthy for featuring guitar hotshot Vinnie Moore before he embarked on his solo career. Naturally, with both Moore and Geoff Thorpe on board this is a hard-charging heavy metal album with plenty of guitar theatrics. The vocals - courtesy of Gary St. Pierre - are solid, but don't quite measure up to what Carl Albert (RIP) would do on later albums.

Soldiers of the Night is an important album for both Vicious Rumors and the American heavy metal scene. If you're a serious collector of 80's metal, you'll definitely want to add this to your collection. If you're new to Vicious Rumors, you'll probably want to start with Welcome to the Ball or Vicious Rumors before looping back around to this one.

Edition Notes: In 2009 Shrapnel finally got around to officially reissuing Soldiers of the Night (as well as Digital Dictator) on CD. The new version comes in a cheap-looking digipack, but does feature a pretty impressive digital remastering job. There are no bonus tracks, but honestly just having this classic metal album on CD is bonus enough.

Excellent Metal Debut from West Coast Power Metal Pioneers. Having Vinnie Moore & Geoff Thorpe as a twin-axe sonic assault tandem makes this a must have purchase alone.

Anyone who is familiar with this album is wondering why it took so long to be released on CD. The rest are wondering how it was ever released at all on CD considering the VR wasn't the biggest band in the world in 80's. The re-mastered sound is great and I am very happy to retire my 25 year old cassette.

Great guitar work by Vinnie Moore which sets the stage for his solo work and the Schrapnel label back in the day.

From opening to close it's a solid CD and still holds up well today. Long Live Heavy Metal!!!

This album is a landmark of the Power metal and marks the launching of Vinnie Moore as lead to guitar and guitar hero. I recommend for loving of the Power and Trash Metal of 80' s. Very strong riffs and solos and more a vocal strident one of Gary St.Pierre.

I picked up a Super Saver copy of this about a year ago when I was trying to complete my Vinnie Moore collection. The sound quality on my copy is a bit muddled, but this version is probably better. Above average Bay Area thrash metal, with a vocalist that was soon replaced for obvious reasons. Anyways, it has a cool "Eruption" type guitar solo instrumental by Vinnie and was worth the 20 bucks or so I paid on ebay for it.

...to buy this album. And that is if you want to hear Vinnie Moore's guitar playing before he went solo. The songs are a bit plain and predictable. Well performed of course, but that rarely helps uninspired material. No, get Vinnie's first 2 solo albums if you want to hear really good guitar shredding. There you might even find a couple of songs that are actually good, especially on "Time odessey".

Several reviewers here have given this album 5 stars. So apparently, they think this album is as good as "Number of the beast", "Stay hungry" and "Keeper of the seven keys pt 2". Well, I don't agree.