Guilty Pleasures

 

Vitamin Z - Sharp Stone Rain [838 847-1 UK 1989 24-Bit FLAC]

Everybody is allowed to own and love just one pompous eighties pop-rock album - this was mine. Vitamin Z were from Sheffield, a city more celebrated on these pages for its industrial musical heritage than growing long hair, tucking its stone-wash jeans into its boots and waving a bono-like white flag over its audience. In fact, if you didn't know differently, you would swear that the bandana'd one is chopping some 'edgy' riffs on a couple of tracks. Vitamin Z's first album was Rites Of Passage which strolled around in Tears For Fears' footprints and produced a minor hit Burning Flame on both sides of the Atlantic in 1984. This the delayed follow-up was laden with catchy eighties rock hooks and would have faired better if it had been released a few years earlier. 

Cast aside your prejudices, there isn't one duff track on this record, however it is let down by the common issue of using five different producers - and that the label squeezed Burning Flame onto the end of the a-side in an attempt to build sales. There were about four or five potential hit singles on the album, however sales were weak and Mercury Records lost interest, releasing only the vibrant Burn For You as a single. You will hear the soulful voice of frontman Geoff Barradale, a man who has managed to make a very reasonable living these days as manager of Yorkshire darlings, Arctic Monkeys.

This is one of those albums which gets a spin once every couple of years, I've dusted of my copy for a new rip - just because I wanted to hear it on my new rig. It sounds even better to these ears. Enjoy.

A1 Can't Live Without You

A2 Don't Wait For Me

A3 Wipe Your Tears

A4 How Far To Queensland?

A5 Save Me

A6 Burning Flame

B1 Burn For You

B2 Everchanging Heart

B3 Can't Stop The Rivers

B4 Heal The Pain

B5 Run For You