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'Great response from listeners. We'll be hearing a lot more from this band in the future!'

Lawrence Guest: Kerrang Radio UK (Broadcast 17/6/07)

THE VASELINE RATS 4 track EP
Having recently toured and recorded with original Judas Priest vocalist Al Atkins, the VR are now recording their own material and pretty good it is too.
Opener 'Et Al' is a solid rocker. Like the second track 'So Over You', it's not all shrill, it's a solid dark heavy sound of modern hard rock. A touch sleazy, with a sense of rock'n'roll. '

'All 4 tracks are top notch metal. Well worth checking out.

4 0ut of 5'

Review by Joe Geesin
Get Ready To Rock: Premier UK Rockzine

Fans of old school bluesy metal should really dig this EP. It's a collection of four screaming hot jams that just plain scorch. While I have favorites on the disc nothing is anything close to weak. This is a great introduction to a killer band that should please fans of modern music and those who like the older breed of hard rocking acts. I look forward to hearing more from these guys. You can get more information on this group at their website.

Track by Track Review

'et al'
The Bass guitar starts this off in tasty fashion. The group jump in with a bluesy hard rocking jam that has elements of both old school and modern rock sounds. It's a smoking cut and a great opener. The guitar solo dominated jam later is a screamer.

So Over You
This has a heavier, more metallic sound and some killer textures. While the opener was strong, this one is more dramatic and darker and I'd haveto say that I like it even better. I should mention that when I saythis cut falls into the category of metal it's more old school metalthan newer and there is also a bit of a punk leaning to it.

All The Ones
Here they stomp in with a more modern raw rock sound. It sill maintains more retro elements, but this metallic screamer is definitely more up to date in terms of sound. You could say that this is more current take on a bluesy hard rocking metal sound. It's another strong one, but I prefer the first two tracks.

Licking My Wounds
They close things off with another scorcher. This one is a frantic metal grind that is the highlight of the disc. It's sort of a more metal sounding take on sounds like Ronnie Montrose used to do in the days when Sammy Hagar was singing for him. The guitar simply screams on this one.

'This is a great introduction to a killer band that should please fans of modern music and those who like the older breed of hard rocking acts. I look forward to hearing more from these guys.'

By Gary Hill
Music Street Journal: USA

Vaseline Rats, The - e.p.
Independent Release
(2007)

Probably, The Vaseline Rats are a bit different group from what I usually pick up for reviews on this website. However, I really enjoyed listening to the entire music contents on their latest e.p., so why don't I add this on my review page?

Oh, btw, please do not get confused with the name of this band. I think there is nothing to do with Nirvana's tune called something like The Vaselines Rat or something. They are remotely different from what Nirvana do, just mind you...hehe. Stylistically, The Vaseline Rats from U.K. are performing solid hard-driving rock music with some hints of grooves and funk rock elements.

The musicianship of this U.K. group is really solid and skilled; that's no doubt about it. Melodic lines of vocal performance are quite melodic, and the ensemble itself sounds quite catchy and very friendly.

Recently, their music has climbed up higher in the U.K. music net circle. Obviously, they've got their fanbase in London and some areas of U.K. to draw the audience in the live music scene. Esp., the bass player Pete MZ Emms is the amazing veteran hard rocker who has performed and worked with the established rock/metal groups, such as Judas Priest, Iron Maiden, Tygers of Pan Tang, Trapeze, and Al Atkins to name just a few; Wow what an extraordinaly line-up. Other members also have really great skills to contibute each other, while performing and composing together. I used to feel it was getting quite difficult to find extraordinary U.K. metal/rock groups during 90's way before. However, there seems that internet and new fanbase in the U.K. nationwide could have something to do with help the excellent hard rock groups like The Vaseline Rats and other talented U.K. metal bands like To-Mera and Biochemical, so I'm quite happy to find gems from U.K. scene just recently. Anyway, I hope they would continue making energetic hard rock with nice groove beats like this e.p.

This band is in the right track for making such a nice rock music. If you like energetic U.K. rock music with memorable melodies and hookliness, let's pay attention to their next move. Recommended for U.K. rock music!

Tetsu Hamanaka: Progressive Metal Magazine: Japan

The Vaseline Rats, een van de weinge bands die een grappige anekdote heeft die bij de naam hoort. Toen bassist Pete MZ Emms aan het lobbyen was op een privé feestje werd hij herkend door een bobo die daar ook rondliep. Zijn uitspraak was toen 'Bloody hell MZ! You can get into places a vaseline rat couldn't get!', een openbaring voor de band die daarna werd opgericht. De V-Rats hebben getourd als live backbone voor Al Atkins van Judas Priest, Jess Cox vanTygers Of Pan Tang en Dennis Stratton van Iron Maiden en Praying Mantis.
De muziek die ze maken is een relaxte vorm van hard-rock/heavy metal. De hard-rock vorm die je het liefst luistert in je auto terwijl je met een hand uit het raam en met 120 kilometer per uur de zonsondergang tegemoet rijdt(uiteraard niet in die hoek dat je verblind wordt, dat zuigt). Het is stoere mannen muziek, alles is lekker aan deze plaat. De gitaarriffs, het knorrende basgeluid dat de muziek vooruit stuwt. Het jammer is dat de zang en de drums wel goed zijn, maar niet speciaal genoeg om het helemaal fantastisch te maken. Voor de rest zijn het 4 nummers die net zo lekker als rauw klinken.
Plaatje dat prima wegluistert en naar mijn persoonlijke ervaring gewoonweg geluisterd moet worden met zo'n enorme old school zonnebril op het hoofd en een hard volume.

'This is rock you listen to in your car with one arm out the window travelling at 120 kilometres an hour!'

Reageer
Zwaremetalen Magazine: Netherlands

THE VASELINE RATS - EPic
The hard rocking UK based outfit The Vaseline Rats was founded in 2004 by lead vocalist and bassist Pete MZ Emms. A three piece unit that frequently performs live, the V-Rats gained notoriety in recent years as the live 'back bone' of a US tour celebrating 20 years of the New Wave of British Heavy Metal. And all the hard rock paid off reflected in the tight sounding feel to the bands recently released 4 song EP entitled EPic. Actually, what we have in the V-Rats is traditional hard rock giving rise to the occasional metal or even blues based tendency. Think early nineties Bride, Love War, Die Happy or Gethsemane Rose (a little known hard rock act also from the UK that in the mid-nineties released an underrated CD)
'Et Al', the opening track to the CD, is an up-tempo groover in which Emms showcases his strong mid-octave ranged vocal style. Good chorus hook here along with a red hot stretch of lead work from guitarist Mike Dejager. 'So Over You' slows the pace down a bit but proves no less notable in combining a raw edged feel with a surplus of guitar driven momentum. A lengthy stretch of lead work at the end helps carry this one out past five minutes. A forwardly placed bass line proves instrumental in allowing “All The Ones” to stand out. Quite the attitude laden track, 'All The Ones' would not sound out of place on Bride’s classic 1992 release. 'Licking My Wounds', the shortest track here at just three minutes, can best be described as another up-tempo rocker with a driving guitar sound and a bountiful amount of bluesy soloing from Dejager.

My overall feeling is that I hope this proves a precursor of things to come from the band. Keeping that in mind, the V-Rats remain at work on new material for their follow up debut release (which will feature Paul May on guitar on a couple of tracks).

Grade 80%

Andrew Rockwell: Angelic Warlord: US Rock Webzine

Britanski sastav The Vaseline Rats predvodi iskusni muzicar, basista i pevac, Pete MZ Emms. On je dugo na sceni, a tokom dosadasnje karijere saradjivao je sa mnogim muzicarima od kojih vredi istaci: Dave Hollanda (Trapeze, Judas Priest), John Lingwooda (Manfred Mann), John Brooksa (The Charlatans). Sa njim u bendu su jos Mike Dejager gitarista i bubnjar Adrian Badland. Nedavno su objavili EP, koji najavljuje izlazak full-lengtha za 2008. godinu.
Istoimeni EP sastoji se od 4 numere: "'Et Al", "So Over You", "All The Ones" i "Licking My Wounds". Bend je na terenu melodicne varijante rocka i hard rocka koji se oslanja na britansku tradiciju 80-tih godina i na sound kojeg su tada na svetsku scenu doneli sastavi tkzv. NWOBHM-a (New Wave Of British Heavy Metal).
Kompletan ponudjeni materijal karakterise jednostavnost u izvodjenju, ali i dodatak modernog pristupa, koji pokazuje da bend shvata vreme i mesto u kojem radi i stvara. Sve ponudjene kompozicije su priblizno slicnog kvaliteta i one jos jednom potvrdjuju iskustvo samog Pete Mz Emmsa i njegovih saradnika. Za sve pristalice 80's British rocka i hard rocka, njihov EP moze biti vise nego obecavajuce ostvarenje.

Ocena (rating): 8/10

Branimir Lokner
Barikada - World Of Music- Serbian Rock Magazine