Band : Vain
Album title : All Those Strangers
Label : Jackie Rainbow Records
Distributor : Connecting Music
Release date : 26/02/2010
Release : CD

Although San Francisco based Glam/ Sleeze Rock act Vain resurfaced (original line-up minus drummer Tom Rickard) for the second time (see below) in 2005 following the worldwide re-issue of their 1989 debut album No Respect in January of that year through Gott Discs (somehow the album never got to Concrete Web) and even released a new album (On the Line) in early 2006 (through Perris in the US and Locomotive in Europe – review posted 27/02/2006), you can hardly say the band is very active. They toured for the album in 2006 (even supported Skid Row o a couple of UK dates), and in 2008 Vain played at the Rocklahoma festival, but their MySpace page’s last up-date is from announcing some UK dates in late November last year (their last blog dating back to August 2006).

Following the 2000 release of his solo album In From Out Of Nowhere (re-issued in 2006 through Locomotive – review posted 25/07), singer Davy Vain (who’d already produced Death Angel’s 1987 debut album) found some work in the studio, co-producing among others on Christina Aguilera’s Stripped album. Now back in 1991, just before Vain’s label Island went belly-up and the band split (guitarist Danny West and drummer Tom Rickard were replaced by Shawn Rorie and former Guns ‘N’ Roses’ Steven Adler respectively, and the band renamed to Roadcrew, but that  act rather quickly split due to the drummer’s drug habit(s)), the original line-up had recorded a 2nd album…which had evidently never seen the light of day. Vain reformed during 1993 in the original line-up minus Rickard, and would continue to give us two more albums (1994’s Move On It through Heavy Metal records, and 1995’s Fade through Japanese label Polystar). What with the recent resurgeance of the Glam/ Sleeze genre, he must’ve felt it was about time to release those lost recordings.

So, if you’re into nice Sleeze/ Glam, and into awkward vocals (Davy’s high-pitched voice is best described as “androginous”, I suppose), then you definitely need to check this album out! With Vain’s specific voice, quite a few of the calmer songs get a balladesque feel (the only actual ballad on the album being ”Shouldn’t Cry”), but the guys díd know how to “rock out”! At least, this album stands the same level as the Davy Vain solo album (I didn’t like On The Line too much – as evidenced from my earlier reviews), in spite of a somewhat disappointing low sound level (you would think someone who’s produced before knew the importance of volume in relation of an album’s explosiveness)! If you’ve never heard of Vain, check out the posted songs at myspace.com/vainkeepsshiningon (no material off this specific album, but what’s posted is representative enough).

89/100

Tony.