Artist: Vengeance
   Title: Soul Collector
   Label: Metal Heaven

Since the bands reformation in 2006 and their aptly titled return album ‘Back In The Ring’, Dutch Metalheads Vengeance have been on a none-stop roller coaster ride of a 25^th anniversary tour, taking some 2 years and a live album ‘Same Same … But Different’.  The band have returned to the studio with Michael Voss for their new opus ‘Soul Collector’. 

This new album captures the band at their finest again with Leon Goewie showing off those Metal pipes of his on vocals, joined by the duel guitar licks of Jan and Timo Somers and the towering rhythm section of Erik Stout on drums, with Barend Courbois on bass.

This album takes over where 'Back In The Ring' left off, with its hard rocking riff driven guitars, powerful back beat and that unmistakable might that is Goewie, who comes across as a mix between Udo and Marc Storace at times.

The album gets underway with ‘Cross In The Rain’ and straight away you're taken back to 'Back In The Ring'.  The band are really going for it in a big way with this album, this is a good honest hard rock album with no frills.  It's simply great guitar orientated rock as it should be and the opener is just that.

The hard rocking continues with the excellent ‘Wait Until The Sun Goes Down’, again it's big licks and pumping bass lines that really make this one, and with a sing-a-long chorus this song is a real Friday night dance floor filler.

The chunky guitars are thrown into overdrive on the title track ‘Soul Collector’, although it's Goewie’s vocals that are the real star on this one as they power on through.

We get a little mental oriental with the towering ‘Samurai’, this one's just sheer power enthused metal and one that many a young Power Metal band would have loved to have in their arsenal.  With the added bonus of the keyboards, this song just soars out of the speakers like a bullet-train on a one way journey to hell.

Don't be fooled though, this band aren’t all about the towering metal anthems as this album contains a few more mellow moments on it.  One such track being the almost Aerosmith like power ballad ‘What The Hell Is Going On’, then there’s the power blues funk of ‘Myspace Freak’, another great dance-along song.

It's back to the more traditional guitar fuelled rock with ‘I Never Felt That Before’ and the great ‘Dance, Dance, Dance’, before we really let Courbois loose on ‘Rock And Roll Band’.  This is good time rock n' roll all the way.  As is ‘So Many Times’, which starts off slowly but soon rockets out, with Goewie’s pushing the limits on this one.

The album comes to an all too premature end for me with the much more gentle soundings of ‘Lean On Me’, which once again shows the bands more refined side and tops off an album that will once again show Vengeance haven’t lost any of their bite.  If you loved 'Back In The Ring' then you’ve gonna be ecstatic when you hear the songs on this new album.

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