Finally seeing release after almost 20 years (WOW! The only thing that makes me feel older is realizing that it's been almost 30 years since Too Fast For Love from the CRUE was released....ugh!), Davy Vain has opened up his vault(or finally secured the legal rights)and has released the ill-fated follow-up to VAIN's debut No Respect, titled All Those Strangers. Long traded and sold in bootleg form amongst the cult following, it's nice to finally hear this album in all of its sonic glory as intended instead of a Memorex cassette copied down 10x since 1991.

VAIN is one of those rare bands that managed to ride the tail end of the Glam movement in the late 80s to some minor success without mimicking what was already popular at the time (POISON=WARRANT/TUFF/PRETTY BOY FLOYD, etc). I really can't figure out what their influences are; it's not blatant. They also had a sound and style that in my opinion put them on a different level than the slew of faceless major label signings that eventually killed off the scene by boring everyone to death with the same look and sound over and over, setting the stage for the likes of NIRVANA and PEARL JAM to squirt the last bit of spray from the Aqua Net can and toss the empty can to the scrap heap of musical trends. This is easy to see in hindsight, but I was as pissed as anyone else at the time when grunge killed off the good time I was having and all of the hot girls started wearing baggy flannel and combat boots, and if you didn't look like you just chopped down a tree or fixed the transmission in your car before you got on stage, you were not only not getting laid any time soon but you were not getting a record deal either. Looking back now, I get it, it's no wonder there was a backlash....just break out an old Headbanger's Ball tape from like 1991/1992 and look at some of the lame excuses for rock bands. Unfortunately, excellent bands like CINDERELLA, BRITNY FOX, ENUFF ZNUFF and VAIN among others either had the rug pulled out from under them after some success or were just D.O.A. and missed the boat by a few years.

VAIN released the excellent No Respect in 1989 to critical acclaim and got some limited exposure on MTV at the time, generating enough of a buzz to ensure a 2nd album. As luck would have it, Island Records was in chaos at the time, and the label opted to not release the follow-up, titled All Those Strangers. There were advance release cassettes floating around, and these made the rounds for the next 2 decades copied and sold on EBay, traded, etc. VAIN eventually released Japanese only releases over the next few years (Move On It and Fade), both of which had a song or 2 from the ATS sessions, but ultimately, both albums were uneven and lacked the spark and energy of the debut, especially the dreadful Fade, filled with lethargic material. No Respect was a true glam/hard rock classic of its time, filled with hooks, meaty guitar riffs, a big heavy sound, and songs with a bit more depth to them that the average gang of 1989 poseurs.

So how does ATS stack up to its predecessor? Well let's just say that the 2005 VAIN release, On The Line, has the real goods and would have been a more suitable follow-up. The problem with ATS is that it sounds rushed and not fully developed, with much weaker songs than No Respect(It's Too Bad, Here Comes Lonely, Looking Glass, Freak Flag), a much thinner sound lacking bottom end and the big guitars, which makes it sound more like a batch of demos than a full blown release. There are some tunes worthy of note here though(Wake Up, Love Drug, Planet's Turning, Shooting Star, Far Away, Shouldn't Cry) and the album as a whole is better than the 2 released in its wake(Move On It and Fade), but the weak production holds it back somewhat. Davy Vain's whiney vibrato vocals are an acquired taste, and without the powerful guitars and in-your-face production backing them up, it can fall a bit flat at times. His strength as a writer/producer lies in the heavier material, and one listen to 2005's On The Line is all the convincing you will need-a very solid VAIN album with the best batch of songs since the debut.

In the end, All Those Strangers is a decent release worth picking up if you already like VAIN, but if you really want essential VAIN, start with No Respect and then On The Line and work your way from that starting point. On a side note, this is a limited release pressed and distributed by Davy Vain himself(available on Amazon) so if you want it grab it while you still can before it's $100 on EBay in 2 years.