Apocalypse

Nobody has written a review for this album so far – with good reasons. I just do it, because the release reminds me of the first Metal Hammer magazine I bought back in 1984. There was advertisement for “Apocalypse” and I read that the Schenker sister (R.I.P.) was involved in this group. Okay, the name of the album was attractive, but anything else did not catch my attention and so it took 40 years until I lent an ear to the record with this mega-interesting artwork (little joke…).

At first I thought I am listening to some unknown Foreigner tracks. But while I was urgently waiting for the Juke Box Hero or – even better – a Woman in Black, I realized that I was wrong. However, here we get this sticky mix of synths and guitars that Foreigner made rich, remember “4”. Admittedly, one cannot blame the guys of Viva for sounding typical German. But bad luck, their pandering to the American way of life was no less embarrassing than an ordinary Krautrock record. The clean, harmless vocals are not completely shitty, but their good times vibrations are hard to endure. On the other hand, if you pray to Loverboy each evening, you will enjoy them and the musical direction of this album as well, not least due to the smooth production which does not hurt anyone.

Perhaps now you ask why an entertaining, optimistic vinyl is called “Apocalypse”. Justified question! But I can explain it. Viva had at least one more or less good idea and so they wrote one comparatively sinister song. The title track is about a nuclear catastrophe. In hindsight it seems that back in the eighties everybody did nothing else but waiting for the imminent doomsday. If you did not express your fear, you were a careless asshole. Surprise, surprise, Viva didn’t want to be assholes and therefore they saw “the war to end all wars” and “the fallout”, oh my God! Nevertheless, the slowly creeping song with its truly impressive piano tones and some good keyboards effects is a cool and comparatively monumental number. One has to get used to a few whispered and high-pitched vocal lines, but they don’t kill this isolated highlight. And the lead vocalist is able to put a tragic note into the word “Apocalypse”, this cannot be denied.

But this track cannot disguise the fact that the vast majority of the tracks sits between a rock and a hard place. The band does not bring its partly decent riffs into full bloom, because they fear to be too heavy, but they also don't allow themselves to switch completely to the pop side of the music world. At the end, we get a cheesy Scorpions-for-beginners-ballad like “Don’t Hold Back the Tears”, or, even worse, total failures (“Nite Side”, beware of its awful disco sounds). After these sonic assaults on good taste, even a mediocre piece like “Keep Rockin’” feels like salvation. Well, as always, maybe it is not fair to assess an album so many years after its release and without having a real feeling for its temporal context. Anyway, now its 2024 and from today’s perspective, this album is simply outdated and irrelevant.