Metal Maidens magazine / Toine van Poorten
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This album contains real heavy metal, and is only meant to be played at full pow
WARNING!!!!! This album contains real heavy metal, and is only meant to be played at full power. Second warning! This is not the all-female band VIXEN, but it’s the original VIXEN from Hawaii, presenting a great compilation album containing the finest heavy metal imaginable. The album opens with “Angels From The Dust”, originally recorded by DEUCE. It can be seen as one of the best underground metal tracks of all time. It was one of the first songs I’ve ever heard by this band, and the great voice of Kim La Chance attracked me right from the start. And not to mention, the great guitarwork of Marty Friedman. Almost nobody knew the man by then, but the people in the tape traders business and underground scene knew that this was the ultimate guitar sound, they liked to hear. Friedman played in DEUCE, before he joined VIXEN. He leaves the band later on to form ALOHA and HAWAII, the awesome band CACOPHONEY (together with his good friend Jason Becker) and later on he joins MEGADETH, a story that most of you will still remember. He also releases a couple of solo albums, of which “Dragon’s Kiss” is by far the best. “Angels From The Dust” is also one of the highlights on Mike Varney’s “US Metal Volume II - Unsung Guitar Heroes”. “New Age Rock ‘N’ Roller” proves us that Kim is still a great singer, because the vocal lines were added to the song, only just a couple of months ago. Kim is still active in the music industry, she plays in bands such as SPACEDRUMS (trance/dance) and KRYSTALWERK, but I don’t think their music is really interesting for the readers of this magazine. This doesn’t alter the fact that a song like “Living In Sin” for example still sounds awesome! The high pitching vocals of Kim gives me the goosebumps all over. Add to this the powerful sound of the other two band members; Paul Escorpeso (ex-MANICA) on bass and Jeff Graves on drums, and you’ll surely enjoy another great heavy metal classic! VIXEN was one of a very few bands coming from Hawaii in those days, next to HAWAII, ALOHA and SACRED RITE. The band released an EP called “Made In Hawaii”, which was also released as a picture disc, in a very limited quantity. All the five songs from the EP are on this disc of course. I’ve always loved VIXEN’s version of THE ANIMALS song “The House Of The Rising Sun”. It was on one of their demos, and it makes the original song sound like a lullaby. With this version I see cracks appearing in the walls of my living room. AAAAAAARRRGGHHH!!!!! We also hear the original versions of “Angels From the Dust” and “Living In Sin” on this album. An album, that is full of real metal classics. Kim formed her own band MALISHA, after she left VIXEN. What else happened in her musical career will be told to you soon hopefully, in an exclusive interview, that we are planning to do with this beautiful, blonde metal VIXEN. Thank you Kim for making the review of this album possible, and thank you very much for the great music, you’ve given to us in the past. We all love you for that! This album, containing thirteen songs and fifty minutes of heav(enl)y metal, receives more points than I am allowed to give, but I don’t care. Play it again, Sam!!
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