WALLNER / VAIN (feat Vinny Appice) – Duel (2023)
We were featuring previous material from the very good hard rock duo WALLNER / VAIN, and now they are releasing the new album “Duel“, again featuring legendary Vinny Appice (Black Sabbath, Dio) on drums.
WALLNER / VAIN was formed in LA by Will Wallner (current lead gitarist for White Wizzard) and female vocalist Vivien Vain when they met at the ‘Rainbow Bar and Grill’ on the Sunset Strip and discovered they shared a passion for hard bands from the 70’s and 80’s.
The duo already released their full length debut LP the past decade, a new album in 2021, and soon after an EP of Thin Lizzy covers titled ‘The Legend Never Dies’ as a warm up before starting work on their new album ”Duel”.
They teamed up with producer Chris Collier (Whitesnake, KXM, Lynch Mob) to obtain that classic hard rock sound, and succeeded on ”Duel”, as this is one of the best American classic hard rock ’80s sounding album recently appeared.
It was important to Wallner that ”Duel” showcase the guitar in a way that was authentic to his heroes. Everything was recorded with a Les Paul through a vintage Marshall stack at concert volumes. There are no plugins, samples, or autotune on Vain’s powerful, natural vocals.
Songs like rocking ‘Johnny B. Bad’ (a song about a vagabond musician Wallner met in Hollywood), the groovy midpaced ‘Duel’, the riff-driven ‘Pay to Play’, the very ’80s ‘Deceive Her’, the melodic hard rocker ‘Into the Night’ – all are strong hard rockers – just to name a few, as all tracks are good, including Wallner’s cover of Gary Moore classic ‘The Loner’.
WALLNER / VAIN delivers well-crafted, killer ’80s-style rockers with an excellent production by Collier, with a sound ranging from ‘American’ late Eighties Whitesnake, Hurricane, Dokken to Thin Lizzy and Gary Moore.
“Duel” portrays the duo bravely continuing the legacy their great predecessors left them with, still it’s more of an appropriate vehicle for expression for the duo than a rip-off of the old patterns, and there’s also this feisty, expressive element in the music that keeps it fresh and unique.
“Duel” will surprise you with its quality female-fronted classic hard rock waves.
Highly Recommended
01 – Johnny B. Bad
02 – Duel
03 – Pay to Play
04 – Deceive Her
05 – Keep Your Head Down
06 – Necrobot
07 – Blink of an Eye
08 – Into the Night
09 – The Loner
10 – Back on the Strip
Vivien Vain – Vocals
Will Wallner – Guitars, Bass
Vinny Appice – Drums (Black Sabbath, Dio)
Jonathan Brown – Drums
Jack Glazer – Bass
BUY
www.amazon.com/dp/B0BXSGGL1V
