Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 9/10
We never truly know who is watching our every move, who is beating the drum behind the scenes in our favour, or even those critically and actively finding ways to make our name slip gently into the arena of giants, all we can hope for is that it is for real, that the backing is one of truth and certainty and not some sort of hoax, pre-arranged and one that is in the back pocket of those that see life as an amusement to visit on the hopeful, that the Simulation Game is not one controlled by the liars, the thieves and the morally bankrupt.
To have the fortune of the brave, the courageous and the elegantly delivered by your side is to know you have the model of the consummate and the ease of a classic in the making ready to take centre stage, and as with the ere of the NWOBHM that brought such dynamism and the pulse to a greater audience, so it is too Voodoo Six that the spotlight has fallen squarely on their impressive and genuine physicality and presence.
Not for nothing have the members of the band, Nik Taylor-Stoakes, Matt Pearce, Tom Gentry, Tony Newton and John Lazarus, caught the eye and burned the senses of all who have come across them, the fact that if you can support the likes of Extreme, UFO and the gods of the genre, Iron Maiden and share the plaudits and accolades on the night, then the simulation of others has been given a wide berth, for in the genuine and authentic we must trust.
Across tracks such The Traveller, Liar and a Thief, Inherit My Shadow, Never Beyond Repair, Control and the storming finale of One Of Us, the album takes on the practice of a skilled surgeon subtly massaging the heart and make it beat faster, brighter, and with an appetite to devour more.
The King has been made way for, now is the time to build empires, now is the era in which the game has been replaced by a real comparison to the days that NWOBHM was the foundation block of all that was to come.
Voodoo Six’s new album Simulation Game is released on October 16th. It’s available to pre-order from https://smarturl.it/VoodooSix.
Ian D. Hall