DEVICIOUS – Never Say Never

If you are casting about in a panic trying to find the next take no prisoners, aggressive Thrash Metal band that will sustain you once Slayer wraps up their farewell tour, look elsewhere than at DeVicious. There is absolutely nothing vicious about DeVicious; the mostly German six-piece band works a vein of Metal at nearly the opposite end of the periodic table than Slayer. Their debut album Never Say Never offers up a ten song buffet of melodic Hard Rock, with clean, precise but unspectacular guitar riffs and solos (except on the title cut and “Calling Angels”, which kicks off with a sweet run up the frets that yields too soon to the keys and vocals), synths galore, and plaintive, soaring vocals from their Serbian singer Zoran Sandorov (aka Mr. Sanders—but why? Zoran Sandorov is a pretty epic Metal name).

The band delivers a perfect eighties’ Hair Metal sound, certain to please fans of the eighties output of bands like Europe, Stryper, Bon Jovi (fifth cut “Crying In The Rain” is especially Jovian), Fifth Angel, House of Lords, Tawny Kitaen era Whitesnake, etc. If you like power ballads, you’ll like this album—even the hardest of the tracks on this record end up drifting into hairy territory thanks to the washes of keyboards and the harmony vocals on nearly every chorus. Never Say Never will not send anyone to the hospital for triggering spontaneous excessive headbanging, but it is a pleasant enough record for those in need of some Metal with all its edges smoothed off.

TUNE INTO METALEXPRESSRADIO.COM at NOON & MIDNIGHT (EST) / 6:00 & 18:00 (CET) TO HEAR THE BEST TRACKS FROM THIS UPCOMING RELEASE!!!