Release date: 11-07-2004 ( orginally in 1994

2004 limited 12-track vinyl edition -The songs on Viva Viva have a timeless quality to them and finds inspiration in a wide range of sounds from the 60's to the present. Viva Vertigo combine upbeat rockers like "Devilhead" and "Viva Viva" with melodic baritone songs like "Jaguar Tornado" with great ease and the album sounds cohesive although the songs can be everything from dreamy, shamelessly poppy tunes to right on guitar rock with a ghostrider touch. Produced by Sune Rose Wagner.

Tracks:
 01. Devilhead 
 02. Viva Viva (Edie Sedgwick) 
 03. Los Angeles
 04. Sugar Cane
 05. Shangri-la
 06. Jaguar Tornado 
 07. Diamond Crush 
 08. Satellite Song
 09. Songs On The Radio 
 10. The Hitch-hiker 
 11. Waltzing With Sin 
 12. Shade

Viva Vertigo is the brainchild of singer/songwriter Simon Beck who under the moniker Viva Vertigo has put together a strong team of musicians to perform the songs on his debut album. Viva Viva has been on the way for a long time since Simon Beck cut the first demos on a 4-track recorder back in 1999.

The material grew from acoustic songs to a more rocking sound and things progressed when Beck met Mick Grondahl (Jeff Buckley Band) who had recently moved to Copenhagen. That shaped the idea of recording Simon Becks songs with skilled musicians while maintaining an open band structure. A structure that still exists today and enables Simon Beck to work with musicians of his choice.

Personnel:
Simon Beck - Vocals, guitars
Sune Rose Wagner - Guitars, percussion, strings, keyboards, backing vocals
Mick Grondahl - Bass, backing vocals
Kristoffer Sonne - Drums, mellotron, percussion
Kristoffer Shelberg - Drums
Jacob Høyer - Drums

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Viva Viva� is the brainchild of a single musician (who, I believe, is a Dane), called Simon Beck (vocals & guitar), who's been recording and producing this with a large set of other musicians for a long while – some songs apparently first appeared in 1999 in demo form. This is kind of a special record. As you may be able to tell from the intricate name and record label (the moto of which is “Pushing Scandinavian Rock to the Man!�), this is absolutely not a metal record. It has no metal influences either. So, if only metal's your game, you can stop reading here.

Right. Now that there's probably less of us left, let's continue. As I said, this record (with a curious cover) is special. It's been a long while in the making and, despite not being very long time wise, it shows that care was taken into making it. The CD is actually made to look and feel like a vinyl record. “Viva Viva� is an example of 80s-90s rock, with influences found in the SONIC YOUTH, VELVET UNDERGROUND, CHRIS ISAAC, DAVID BOWIE, THE SMASHING PUMPKINS, MADRUGADA, IGGY POP (& THE STOOGES) and others. With a (neo-)romantic attitude and a very rocky feeling, VIVA VERTIGO is an example of how old school rock without any experimentation done right. “Viva Viva� is off to a very good start, with one of the best (and most upbeat) tracks in the CD, “Devilhead�. But there are a lot of good tracks in this CD- most of them actually (with a few exceptions like “Los Angeles�), making the CD a breeze to listen to. To give you a visual of the music, I kept getting flashbacks of highway driving and smoky bars. The production is good, making the instruments sound clear – don't think that there's anything fancy in this CD: just guitars, a bass, drums, vocals (there are backing vocals as well) and very very few keyboards.

If you're into mid to up tempo old school rock with some downtempo tracks here and there is your thing, you'll be doing yourself a serious disfavour not checking out “Viva Viva�.

Reviewer: Stefanos Zachariadis