Hailing from the Netherlands, Adrian Vandenberg was a hotshot guitarist making a few waves in America with his debut album. Back in 1982, the guitar hero was just beginning to go full swing and Vandenberg was definitely a contender. He wrote hot licks and had a great balance between speed and melody in his soloing. His band, named after himself, and even featuring cover art created by the man, got the mullet wearing, beer drinking in parking lot and doobie puffing rockers to smile big upon it’s release.

The album is good, not great. There are moments of greatness but not enough to kick this one into the must-own category. One of the first recorded power ballads, “Burning Heart” is the best known song, as it actually cracked into the Top 40 back in the day. “Wait” and “Your Love is in Vain” were both good tracks as well.

The album suffers a bit from material that is just not quite up to par to other rock bands at the time. It sounds dated, nowadays, and just doesn’t quite live up to albums like Rainbow’s Straight Between the Eyes, Glenn Hughes and Pat Thrall’s Hughes/Thrall, Night Ranger’s Dawn Patrol, Scorpions’ Blackout, Judas Priest’s Screaming for Vengeance or Whitesnake’s Saints & Sinners. Perhaps coming out in a year that included so many classic albums hurt Vandenberg.

This is still a damn good album that has great guitar playing, good vocals, decent songs and is a great representative of where hard rock was at back in ’82.

By Jeb Wright