Space Vacation-Heart Attack

PURE STEEL RECORDS
2013 

Give San Francisco's Space Vacation some credit. When they came together as a band and decided to follow in the footstep's of some of their favorite 80's metal and NWOBHM acts they sure went all out. They even included muffled vocals in this album's mix to make it ("Heart Attack") all sound that much more authentic! That right there is the biggest flaw with this 10 track release, but make sure to read on as it does get better for these guys. The band features former Vicious Rumors' guitarist Kiyoshi Morgan, drummer Eli Vogt (Ancient At Birth, Hatchet, In Virtue, Nullsake) and founder & former guitarist/vocalist turned bassist/vocalist Scott Shapiro. A self-released/self-titled debut album was issued in 2009 with a split with fellow Californian's Amplifires following later that same year. Both their debut album and "Heart Attack" were released on the band's own label so Space Vacation sure sounds like a D.I.Y. project. Strike that. This is no project. This is a band so calling it a D.I.Y project is too misleading. Despite the obvious setback that muffled vocals present this is some fine US metal in it's own right. The influences listed on their Facebook seem to ring familiar (Iron Maiden, Van Halen, Diamond Head, Angel Witch, Thin Lizzy, Slayer, Dio, Black Sabbath, Rush, Motörhead, Def Leppard, etc), but those who would end up reading too much into that could find themselves in for disappointment. As earlier stated, in and of itself,  Space Vacation offer up some solid material that is easy enough to call US metal. Those heavier influences like Motörhead and Slayer (Metallica is listed as well on their page) might sound good on paper, but the lead guitar work here is more 80's metal then the blazing work of Metallica or Megadeth. Nothing wrong with that at all mind you when things click tight like this. Together with the 80's metal leanings is some superb (heavier side of mind you) melodic metal and even some speed metal and power metal. With all of these different influences (80's metal, NWOBHM, melodic, etc) helping to color in the edge's of the band's sound things come off as blissfully dated! In this case dated metal like this is wonderful as here is another fine young band that doesn't just carbon-copy their favorite bands (and then pepper everything with a modern "retro" touch), but instead finds a way to make their metal have an older charm. Other then the vocals sounding off this LP is another fun metal release/re-release ("Heart Attack" was originally released in 2012. Pure Steel Records is just giving the band a chance to offer a proper release for 2013) that should fit comfortably into most people's heavy metal collections.