British band Vega released their sixth album, entitled “Grit Your Teeth”, on 12th June. This is their fifth release with Frontiers Music. The band formed in 2009, releasing their debut album the following year, and has toured widely, often supporting bands such as FM, Magnum or Last In Line. Singer Nick Workman has been a guest on the Friday NI Rocks Show twice. So far five songs from the new album have featured on the Show over the past few months; the most recent being “Blind” on 3rd July.
Vega was formed in 2009 by vocalist Nick Workman, guitarist Marcus Thurston and drummer Dan Chantrey along with brothers James Martin on keyboards and Tom Martin on bass. Chantrey departed in 2017 and was replaced by Martin ‘Hutch’ Hutchison. Second guitarist MyKey Kew joined the band officially in 2017, having played with the band live for some time.
The debut album “Kiss of Life” was released through Frontiers in December 2010. The band then moved to Spinefarm Records for the release of “What The Hell!” in 2013, before returning to Frontiers for the release of “Stereo Messiah” in 2014. Nick was my guest on the Show in October just after the release of that album and ahead of their first ever gig in Belfast supporting Joe Elliott’s Down n Outz - http://www.rockradioni.co.uk/interviews/1699-ni-rocks-interview-with-nick-workman-from-vega.html
The band’s fourth album “Who We Are” was mixed and mastered by Harry Hess and was released in May 2016. I recorded an interview with Nick and Marcus in Belfast shortly after when they were supporting Magnum on tour - http://www.rockradioni.co.uk/interviews/2640-ni-rocks-interview-with-nick-a-marcus-from-vega.html The fifth album “Only Human” was released two years later in May 2018.
The writing, recording, mixing and mastering of “Grit Your Teeth” was completed during 2019 and the band set out to do something different with this album; wanting something modern, edgy and perhaps more ‘metal’ at times. Nick is quoted as saying “don’t try and tag it with any sub-genre of rock or metal, just enjoy it.” That shouldn’t be difficult to do!
Check out the band’s website at https://www.vegaofficial.co.uk/
About “NI Rocks Recommends”
This is purely a personal recommendation and some information about the artist and the album; not a traditional ‘review’. Most of the recommendations posted are for albums that have been sent to us digitally by the record label or promoter. Quite often I’ve also bought the album on CD or vinyl as well and sometimes I just feel the need to post a recommendation for an album that I’ve bought myself. Essentially these are albums that I like and which I’ve played some tracks from on the Shows on Rock Radio NI!