VIRGIN IDOL is a new band that deals in occult flavoured Traditional Heavy Metal. Formed in Illinois in 2020, this self-titled LP is their first official release. Ostensibly offering nine tracks, I should point out that once you remove the Intro and the Outro, we are left with something like 25 minutes of original music making this a rather compact disc.

Diving in, the album kicks off with the aforementioned "Intro," an atmospheric start to proceedings, I was half expecting to hear Freddie Mercury bursting onto stage to sing "One Vision," this obviously does not occur, and the intro goes on for quite some time with horror movie stylings winding its way towards the first track proper "Don't Touch the Flame". Sadly, this initial excursion fails to impress, the riff is monotonous and repetitive, the bass plays one note for much of the song, except on what seems to be some sort of quasi-chorus where it plays 3 notes. The vocals are exceptionally high-pitched, they are in tune and reasonably well delivered but still make me want to poke my eardrums out, and in any case the quality of the recording is such that you cannot make out much of what is being sung. Furthermore, the production quality is only up to that of a demo, and the two absurdly shreddy and indiscreet guitar solos sound like they were played through a cheap 90s multi-FX unit. Not the most auspicious of beginnings.

"Satan's Will" represents something of an improvement, certainly the riff is more muscular, and less sleep inducing, but the lyrics remain stubbornly incomprehensible and there still doesn't seem to be much in the way of a chorus as the guitars continue their chosen path through much of the song without any significant deviation. Once again, the solos sound like they are played with cheap effects and ranged completely right in the mix which doesn't quite work. "Do It Again" features a much faster riff, that interchanges with heavy doomy sections. The structure of the song is more engaging, but the vocals still suffer from all the same problems, and once again there is no key changing at all, the guitars drone along revolving around the same small note selection for the whole song.

"Junji" is nothing more than an isolated guitar solo, without the interference of the dull bass and ear-splitting vocals this is a highlight of the LP, being as it is, very well performed. But really you can subtract this one from the running time as well, as it is a blatant time filler. I am afraid that "Demon Night" and "Heartshaker" don't offer anything anymore distinguished that would warrant any in-depth analysis.

Closing the LP out is "Russian Roulette" which sports a catchy Hard Rock riff, and some neat, synchronised rocking between the guitars and drums, but the composition is humdrum and offers nothing we haven't heard many times before, not just in Rock, but in this LP.

As I already mentioned, besides the predictability of the song writing and the unlistenable vocals, the worst sin committed here is the poor production, this is just not good enough to be a professional release. Sorry guys, but I just cannot find anything of sufficient quality to recommend this release.