Band:
Charlie Huhn (Vocals, Guitar and Piano)
Tommy Newton (Guitars & Backing Vocals)
John Lockton (Guitars and Backing Vocals)
Peter Knorn (Bass)
Bernie Van Der Graaf (Drums)
Discography:
1985 Victory
1986 Don't Get Mad... Get Even
1987 Hungry Hearts
1989 Culture Killed the Native
1990 Temples of Gold
1992 You Bought It - You Name It
1996 Voiceprint
2003 Instinct
2006 Fuel to the Fire (Re-recordings of older songs)
2011 Don´t Talk Science (recorded in 2009)
info:
guests
Released 16/5-2011
Reviewed 31/5-2011
Links:
victory-music.com
yesterrock
Victory was once ranked among the really big German bands like Scorpions or Accept and were playing in front of crowds of tens of thousand people back in the eighties. Some might argue that they reached for fame with their rather unorthodox and also at the time debated album cover as you can see up to the left. It triggered some debate which for all of us not too old today seem rather odd but at that time there was no interned loaded with sexist content as it is now. So the Victory lady might have been a help for them to reach the charts with their first album and also playing in the us on a subsequent tour in front of 60-80’000 people, which sound pretty amazing if we consider how successful debut albums are today.
Musically it sounds like you would imagine hardrock of this era to sound, it is hard and heavy and quite energetic and raw. The sound is not as polished as the rock sound of bands that arrive at the scene today and in the case of this album it is not a handicap. There are nine tracks and 36 minutes of music on the album and once again it makes me long for the days of the vinyl record where it was not possible to cram in more than somewhere around 40 minutes of music, the albums were almost never too long at that time and this album is surely not too long, 36 minutes feels quite ideal for a rock album. Another thing worth just a quick notice before moving on is the lyrics which are quite cliché.
I just love the opening track The Hunter it has such a magnificent chorus and the melody is great, it is a wonderful old 80s rock song made the way they are supposed to be made. From there it drops a little but overall the songs are really good and the album is one of those great rock albums, it sounds like classic hardrock was supposed to sound when Jesus invented it outside Bethlehem back in the day. Victory was present at that day and took in what Jesus said and made this album some years later.
The brilliant thing about so short albums as 36 minutes is that you do not get a chance to tire of what you are to hear which makes the album so much easier to take in but also to really enjoy as you never get that feeling that you’d rather be listening to something else or maybe even doing something else because the album is starting to loose its grip on you, that never happens with great short albums like this one.
I think that the debut of Victory is as good, if not better, now than it was back when it was released and I think this old gem belongs among the best album that has been released this year so far. And if supply is less than the demand it is a good thing that it is now again possible to buy this great album. Victory’s debut album as this is really show us how the rock music at this era was supposed to sound, and it was not only good then, it is still a great album. For me this album symbolise how the hard rock of this era is supposed to sound.
HHHHHHH
