Vega-Kiss Of Life

Frontier Records 2010

Frontier Records (home of Jeff Scott Solo) has a great reputation of signing quality acts. Vega certainly fits that bill. Featuring vocalist Nick Work (ex Kick/Eden), Tom and James Martin (twins and respected songwriters-House Of Lords,etc.) and drummer Dan Chantey Vega are a UK band looking to bring back melodic metal to the masses (did it ever really leave or just change names?). Citing influences such as Bon Jovi, Def Leppard and Journey Vega's debut album Kiss Of Life does deliver on that promise. It's takes a lot for me to admit that despite my love of bands like Slayer and Motorhead I do enjoy some Journey now and then. Maybe it's my wife's musical tastes rubbing off on me but melodic rock can be a nice change of pace (snicker now if you must). Listening to Vega's album at first just brought to mind bands like Bon Jovi (especially on the track One Of A Kind) but the more the disc went on the more it grew on me. Tracks like A.N. other and Heart Of Glass are nice slices of AOR while Stay With Me had a nice guitar solo midway through (which I do wish they would have done a bit more on the release). Wonderland ended up being one of my favorites though with a contagious feel to it. You can hear bits of their influences on Kiss Of Life (it also brought to mind Foreigner and Nelson for some reason) but they pull it off. Recommended for AOR fans and guys like me who secretly have a softer side!