Since their debut in 2000, these Orange County metalheads have continued to improve their dynamic style. By mixing the glam-rock groove of Marilyn Manson with anthemic choruses, chugging energy , and flashy solos, their records bite hard and hang on tight. On Eighteen Visions, they flaunt their range with songs like "Buried Us Alive," where boy-band choruses are bookended by unrelenting guitar solos and seedy lyrics that would make Axl Rose proud. By accenting melodies with brutal hardcore, Eighteen Visions creates a brilliant, diverse sound.

OC crew mature at the risk of potential fanbase alienation As one of the best records of 2004, Eighteen Visions’ Obsession was always going to need a big follow-up. And whilst the style has changed, and the aggression is gone, the effort is evident for all to hear on their fourth album, the eponymous aural juggernaut. With Lamb Of God producer Machine at the helm, 18V have come a very long way since 2000’s Until The Ink Runs Out. The visceral single-voiced metalcore anthems have been exchanged for multi-story vocal tracks, with 20 electronically-cloned James Harts all singing at once and the inclusion of massive gang vocals- 18V and their mates- on “Broken Hearted” and “Burn Us Alive.” The resulting tunes sound like the whole of Orange County have turned out to support their fastest rising stars- as well as giving the band that gritty “We’re still 18V from the black” appeal, dismissing any snotty rock star pretentions. Meanwhile, “Another Pretty Suicide” has a fairly naff industrial beat intro, but tumbles into that classic 18V rolling riffage; “Victim” sounds just like Velvet Revolver on a good day; “Our Darkest Days” pulls off an AFI-style drum chant intro; and “Broken Hearted” smacks of Whitesnake’s soft rock slowly “Is This Love.” There is a feeling of studio disassociation that big pop rock records invariably suffer: everything is recorded completely separately, right down to individual cymbals, resulting in an air-fix record without the fraternal symbiosis that made previous album “Obsession” so accessible and honest. Eighteen Visions have made an adult album: great and varied songs with texture and depth delivered in easy to swallow capsules. Kinda like heavy metal U2. As such it remains to be seen whether they are able to retain their kudos and credence with heir more militant fanbase.

Retro Rocks! Eighteen Visions pay homage to cock rock on new record! Rock sound’s been catching up with reformed metalcore merchants Eighteen Visions to discuss their dramatic switch to cock rock anthems. And they aint apologizing to no one. Eighteen Visions have come out of the closet and confessed to Rock Sound a love for tight denim, large white trainers, dubious ripped shirts and poodle perms. In other words, they have finally owned up to their fondness for cock rock. “On our new record we wanted to take classic ideas that Def Leppard and Skid Row had-like gang vocals-bring them back, and modernize them, “unashamed frontman James Hart told Rock Sound. Bassist Mick Morris also offered a ringing endorsement of the one armed anthem machine and their ilk. “That’s the shit we grew up on, and for so long rock has been in a really sad state. We just wanted to write a really good heavy rock record that sounds huge. I mean I still listen to Guns n Roses nearly every day of my life, that type of music is a massive influence on us all.” An open confession like this is needed to explain their forthcoming self-titled release, which raises eyebrows with its exuberant levels of stadium pomp and arena rock swagger. It is a far cry from the ‘Vanity’ (02) days and another large step on from ‘Obsession’ (04). However, it does cast a large shadow over their last effort, exposing some of the crude attempts to fuse their musical loves with their then-metallic sound. “We never intended ‘Obsession’ to be a bridge between records at all,” Hart told RS, defending the integrity of the offering. “We just wrote the record we wanted to at the time. Writing songs that had more structure and melody was something new to us when we were doing that album, so we didn’t nail it down entirely. When we started writing this record, we were more experienced with writing rock songs, incorporating melody and blending metal, heavy rock and ballad-type-stuff, and still making it fit. I think this new album couldn’t have happened with ‘Obsession’ as the jump would have been too big for us and for our fans.” The band is prepared for the criticism they will undoubtedly receive as a result of their bold evolution. “We don’t regret anything we have ever done, as musicians we have been writing for 12 or 13 years, so of course we are going to grow, change and learn about what we want to play,” Hart said. ‘We can say those things about our classic influences because they are laced throughout the record; we brought stuff back and modernized it through a bigger and heavier type of music. If you pull from a new band then you just sound like a band that already exists. Who wants that? Who wants to sound just like Bullet for My Valentine? We want this to be nostalgia for people, we want people to remember this record in 10 to 15 years time.” Despite their clear dedication to the past, Eighteen Visions recorded and created their new album with the most modern of technologies, swapping song ideas on ipods and demoing on ProTools, cutting and pasting elements of songs to create the ultimate rock song. “When we were writing the songs we were just going for it. We had 30 songs demoed, trimmed the fat down to 22 for preproduction, and then trimmed to the final 12,” Hart explained. “We tracked the drums separate from the cymbals and we have drum sounds that no one else has. ProTools and technology gave us a world of freedom to experiment and write on the road. We had a year of pre production while touring before pre-production officially began.” With time and technology, Eighteen Visions have created a self-titled statement that swaggers around like a freshly-permed Sebastian Bach in leather trousers and waistcoat, all coming soon to an arena near you.

Following the example set by fellow mall-metal successes My Chemical Romance and Avenged Sevenfold, this Orange County fivesome spit-shine their tortured, sludgy riffs with market-savvy prevision on their major-label debut. Despite its beefed-up guitars and stadium-ready drums, though, it isn't quite the TRL concession message-board skeptics will claim: Even when his bandmates echo the lush power-ballad sonics of "November Rain," front-man James Hart sounds as if he's sneering "Welcome to the Jungle"; the pissy SoCal sleaze in his voice preserves the music's raw basement-show edge. "You motherfucker, you've lost all you loved," he sings in "Burned Us Alive," seemingly taunting the Top 40 itself.