Victory - Instinct
SPV
Melodic Rock
11 songs (50'36)
Release year: 2003
SPV
Reviewed by Ben

For some reason, Instinct is being touted as a highly anticipated reunion album, which I find odd considering I have never heard of Victory before. Something tells me Victory reuniting has caused about as much uproar as the recent Warrant split. My main interest in this group is the fact that one time Axel Rudi Pell singer Charlie Huhn is also the voice here, and as you can tell by my review of Wild Obsession, I am a big fan of his brand of singing. On Axel’s cd he had a gravelly, sharp, and grit filled hoarse croon, with Victory age has given him a more mature tone than his younger days. Musically, Instinct is very different than Wild Obsession, as it covers many hard rock styles, you have some thundering heavy metal songs, AC / DC styled rockers, and then almost bluesy type jams.

There’s eleven tracks on this album and out of those eleven there are six that stand out to me and are instantly recognizable, unfortunately the rest just blend together into standard fare rock. Two absolute killers are the opener Running Scared and Seen the Light. Evoking the best moments of Saxon mixed with Euro flavored melodic rock, these two songs soar and kill everything else on the album. Heavy, pounding drums, thick crunchy riffs with godly licks and leads, and killer vocals, these tracks have it all. Too bad they’re the only ones on the album that kick this much ass. Another Notch in the Bedpost is pure AC / DC and despite its campiness, I enjoy this one a lot. Victoria’s Secrets (and I thought Sonata would be the only band to have the balls to name a song this) is a light, happy southern rock song and even though it has the same airy feel that Another Notch in the Bedpost has, this just wears out after three or four listens. In fact, that’s what the rest of the album can be summed up as, has it’s moments but wears out it’s welcome much sooner than expected.

Other than a handful of songs here there isn’t really anything that has much staying power on Instinct which is too bad because I really like Huhn’s voice. If these were a bunch of new musicians just starting out I would rank this in the sixties, but since these are veterans in the music business I know that they should be much more capable of making a better album than this.

Killing Songs :
Running Scared and Seen the Light
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