VANDERBERG – Devil May Care (2016)
VANDERBERG has set to release its debut full-length album “Devil May Care” today, November 18th 2016. We already featured last year on the blog an interesting EP from this German musician Marc Vanderberg (not related to famous guitarist Adrian Vandenberg, note the ‘r’ instead of ‘n’) but they have in common a passion for electric guitar and hard rockin’ sounds.
Vanderberg’s debut album opens with the only instrumental track, “Godfather”, a fine showcasing for Marc’s guitar skills. The rest consists of nine mostly melodic hard rock oriented songs heavily influenced by late ’80s Malmsteen, John Norum (Europe) solo works, and Kee Marcello (ex- Europe).
His devotion to Swedish guitar heroes is obvious, especially when a former Yngwie Malmsteen and John Norum vocalist appears on the album: the great Göran Edman sings lead on two tracks, title track “Devil May Care” and “Infinite Love”.
Overall, songwriting and production smells of the ’80s, also the lyrical themes mainly of the type that were the norm back in the day. That is not a bad thing with this kind of guitar-based melodic hard rock with some edge and heaviness as heard in “Spirit of the Dragon” ala Axel Rudi Pell.
Marc Vanderberg also does lead vocals on “Pray”, the only weak link in on the album.
But melody is the main focus as on the title track, the good ballad “Infinite Love”, the pretty catchy “Key to Your Heart” (layers of harmonies) and the excellent, slightly AORish “Storm, Thunder and Lightening”, the last two performed by the very interesting vocalist Paulo Cuevas (Sigma, Within The Hour).
“Devil May Care” is an album that will appeal to those of you who love stepping into a time machine and go back 30 years in time to a period when the European and particularly Swedish Rock scene was dominated by melodic hard rock plenty of guitars and keyboards.
This is a rather promising debut. As next step it would be great to see Marc Vanderberg put together a proper band with a permanent vocalist. He has the chops and a quite consistent songwriting.
01 – Godfather
02 – Devil May Care (feat. Göran Edman)
03 – Key to Your Heart (feat. Paulo Cuevas)
04 – Pray (feat. Boban Vasileski)
05 – Infinite Love (feat. Göran Edman)
06 – Storm, Thunder and Lightening (feat. Paulo Cuevas)
07 – Crash N Burn (feat. Boban Vasileski)
08 – Spirit of the Dragon (feat. Boban Vasileski)
09 – Corrosion of Society (feat. Paulo Cuevas)
10 – Smoking Kills (feat. Tave Wanning & Chris Divine)
Marc Vanderberg – guitar, vocals on 4, bass, keys
Göran Edman – lead vocals 2, 5
Paulo Cuevas (Sigma, Within The Hour) – lead vocals 3, 6, 9
Boban Vasileski – lead vocals 4, 7, 8
Chris Divine (Luna Rise) – vocals 10
Tave Wanning (Adrenaline Rush) – vocals 10
Oliver Dereker – guitar solo on 5
Dustin Tomsen – guitar solo on 2
BUY IT !
www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B01M8K5ES9
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