| Artist: | Vicious Rumours |
| Title: | Sadistic Symphony |
| Label: | Point Music 266009 |
| Length(s): | 52 minutes |
| Year(s) of release: | 2000 |
| Month of review: | [03/2001] |
| 2) | Sadistic Symphony | 5.46 |
| 4) | Blacklight | 8.05 |
| 6) | Born Again Hard | 3.46 |
| 7) | Neodymium Man | 4.35 |
| 8) | Elevator To Hell | 3.55 |
| 9) | Cerebral Sea | 4.52 |
| 10) | Ascention | 1.23 |
| 11) | Liquify | 5.11 |
Next up is the title track, which opens with dissonant acoustic guitars. Sharp, noisy guitar work follows next on the bombastic intro to this track. Parts such as these make this band one to be featured on this site. The gravelly vocals dominate the song with dramatic effect with various vocal melodies and changes of pace. These vocals are like a rough chanting. The following sinister guitar solo is very good, and what follows then is an acoustic interlude preceded by a bass solo. Then the band comes back in full force with strong chops.
March Of The Damned opens machine gun sounds, the singer follows up with a long yeah. This seems to be a song about Vietnam. Like in the previous tracks, the singer sounds a bit back in the mix. The vocal melody is the leading one, with the guitar playing its chords in the background. Again, the band introduces variation by including acoustic guitar and then building back up.
The voice of Morgan Thorn does not seem well-suited for the balladic opening Blacklight. The band does fire up bit then, but the balladic part returns. For the most part this is an accessible track, with accessible vocal melodies, but do not let yourself be fooled. The band is much better at writing songs, than many of the progmetal bands that are being put forward today, being, according to their label, the promise for the future.
Speed returns on the angry Puritan Demons. Heavy drums, furious soloing and vocals spit out, the song does have a poppy chorus and the lyrics are more or less what you can expect from the title. Not a strong track, mostly because of the overly poppy chorus, but it is energetic.
Meandering guitar opens Born Again Hard. The vocal part is a bit bouncy, with the singing being punctuated by the rhythm guitar. That part reminds me a bit of Kashmir. It must be the way the guitar sounds here.
During Neodymium Man, the band start to show wear. The repetively chanted title does not sound interesting. Maybe, all a bit too metallic for my tastes.
Speed and the swollen vocals return on Elevator To Hell. Speedy and energetic with plenty of breaks as well. Lyrically similar to Puritan Demons, lyrical abuse.
Cerebral Sea opens peacefully with acoustic guitars against the backdrop of the sea. The music continues to be of low pace, but it does have something noisy about it. The vocalist does his best, but I still think he doesn't have the voice for it. The vocals and backing also introduce a kind of unrest in this track.
Ascention is a short powerful instrumental of strong bombastic chords and rolling drums. The band does have a number of vocal samples.
The closer of the album is Liquify. The dissonant sounding intermezzo is well dissonant, but the rest is rather standard sounding.