I also picked up the new(ish) Ratt album: Infestation. I had heard good things about it, but wasn’t prepared for just how great it is. The first thing that struck me was that they haven’t got grungey or nü-metally at all. This is great old-school Ratt-style hair metal. It sits perfectly with Detonator, which is one of my favourite hair metal albums ever (and therefore of course one of my favourite albums of any style.
Herewith my impressions track by track…

Eat Me Up Alive: excellent opener. Classic Ratt riff to begin – though with a grittier, more organic guitar tone. Catchy chorus, excellent guitar work. Classic Ratt (welcome back).

Best of Me: fantastic. Starts with a riff that could sit on Invasion of Your Privacy. Has some neat chords in the verse, and a perfect prechorus: catchy, great backing vocals, cool arpeggiated guitar. The chorus is fantastic and very catchy – reminiscent of Run Around, to my ears. The solo is much, much win – but basically every bit of lead playing on the album is awesome. I haven’t picked out what’s Warren DeMartini and what’s Carlos Cavazo, but they’re both plying brilliantly.

A Little Too Much: again it could be on Detonator. The verse chords are the sort of slightly twisted harmony (as compared to most hair metal at any rate) Ratt often did. The chorus is fantastic: catchy, excellent backing vocals. I’m guessing the solo is Cavazo (he was in Quiet Riot, right? So played the solo on Cum On Feel the Noize?)

Look Out Below: dirty swing – nicely finding the tension between straight and swung. I don’t find it as catchy or immediately appealing as the last three, but it’s much cool. At the end I notice that DeMartini and Cavazo might be separated left and right – even the lead parts.

Last Call – very cool guitar riffs under the vocals. Great backing vocals. Neat bluesy/boogie interludes before the choruses – which again make excellent use of a call-refrain with the backing vocals. Cool harmony guitar solo – and at this point I’m thinking Warren’s on the right.

Lost Weekend: yep, I reckon Warren’s on the right, with a great intro lead. This song brings in some harder elements in the chorus, mixed with classic Ratt throughout. Great bridge!! Oh that’s excellent. The solo is totally choice of course.

As Good as it Gets: slightly odd intro/chorus riff, with a recurring chromatic note that’s slightly jarring in fairly typical Ratt fashion. The chorus doesn’t really grab me, but it’s still cool. More harmony guitars and cool soloing.

Garden of Eden: this doesn’t really sound like classic … oh … now the vocals have come in, and it does. The chorus (and much of the rest of the song – except he prechorus) sounds more hard rock than hair metal. The solo I would think was Cavazo, but sounded slightly to the right until it got panned hard left at the end. 1. That does me think I’m right about Warren being on the right. 2. I’m guessing my earbuds aren’t in that well, so I’ve been hearing centre slightly right.

Take a Big Bite: another medium tempo Ratt rocker with call-refrain between lead and backing vocals. And more great harmony (and traded) lead playing.

Take Me Home: ballad time! The chorus is reminding me of someone else, but I can’t think who. To be honest I find the ascending movement in the chords in the chorus a bit jarring. ah – that’s more Ratt (the bridge). Lovely solo – I’m picking DeMartini. Hmmm – now there’s soloing on the left over the chorus. Whatever; I don’t know Cavazo’s playing hardly at all anyway. I’m just going to listen and enjoy now

Don’t Let Go: an up-tempo rocke to close out the album. Pretty much classic Ratt, but with noticeably heavier guitar styling in the prechorus. They’re still sticking closely to classic pop/rock song structures, with catchy prechoruses and bridges – which I love.

Anyway, 10 things that annoy me (in no particular order) …

1. People who denigrate virtuosity on the guitar, as though it’s ok to have chops if you’re a pianist or sax player or something, but if you play guitar all you should play are strummed chords and sloppy pentatonics
2. Cookie Monster Vocals
3. Manufactured plastic music
4. “Reality” TV
5. 3 + 4 >_<
6. Homeopathy, Naturopathy, Iridology, Reiki, Acupuncture, Deepak Chopra, Oprah Winfrey, Suzanne Somers, Dr Phil, Mike Adams … Woo in all its forms
7. Jenny McCarthy, Jim Carrey, Age of Autism, Meryl Dorey, the Australian Vaccination Network … anti-vaxxers in general.
8. Scientology
9. The fact I have to sleep every night – damn waste of time

Aaaaand …

10. The fact that hair metal is not recognised as the pre-eminent music force in the history of the world. \m/ \m/

The singer with South Gang, Jesse Harte, is a great example of what you find in band after band after band in the 80s and into the early 90s: a vocalist with a tremendous range, grit, and power. These guys sang high as hell, while keeping great powerful chesty tone. Seriously it seemed there must be vocalists like this growing on trees almost, there were so many who were so good. Another personal favourite of mine is Terry Ilous from XYZ, but they really were everywhere.

Now what do we have?

A thousand damn iterations of the Cookie Monster, is what it seems we have. Can’t hear the lyric … Got no melody … But srsly how come nobody’s singing??! Surely it’s not as if humans have lost the ability to sing like that … Surely?

I guess I’m just an old fogey, but I cannot fathom the ascendancy of Cookie Monster vocals. It makes no sense to me. Give me Jesse Harte. Give me Terry Ilous. Give me Joey Gioeli. Give me Sebastian Bach. Give me frakkin Ronnie James Dio! Give me … just give me some singers who sing.

Please.

I do love hair metal – as detailed in my previous post. It’s in fact one of my two favourite genres of music.

This is a song I wrote back in 1993, I think, with a friend and collaborator. I re-recorded it (sans vocals) a couple of years ago in a semi-manic post-midnight frenzy. I recently rewrote the chorus a little and re-recorded the rhythm guitar (complete with EVH-ripoff tapping :-p ) but didn’t want to touch the lead guitar because of the semi-Petrucci run I had somehow managed to do in the end solo. O_o

I’ve just recorded lead vocals, and called the track finished – except that it needs real drums :-/ I didn’t have any video of the actual recording, so I decided to Milli Vanilli it for the purpose of uploading it here. Of course, being a hair metal song, I had to break out the metal bandana :-p

Let me know what you think.

I saw recently that Steel Panther have a #1 cd … in the Billboard “comedy” chart O_o WTF is that about? Sure the lyrics are funny, but the music is most triumphantly tremendous hard rockin’ hair metal. And yes, I mean that in a very good way.

Hair metal is awesome: Lynch Mob, Ratt, Skid Row – the original Skid Row that is; without Bas they are nothing  Bon Jovi, Hardline, Bangalore Choir, Winger, Saints and Sinners, Firehouse, Dokken, Hericane Alice, Southgang, Danger Danger, Motley Crue, Slaughter, Europe, House of Lords, Cinderella … the list goes on, and on. Great bands, great songs, great energy, greeeeeeat guitar playing – vis:

Lynch Mob – Wicked Sensation:

Winger – Headed for a Heartbreak:

Hardline – Takin’ Me Down:

Ratt – Round and Round:

Bangalore Choir – Loaded Gun:

Bangalore Choir – Just One Night:

Bangalore Choir (ok, I loooove this band, yes) – Angel in Black:

And there’s more. Much more. Seriously, what’s not to like? I honestly don’t know who could listen to this and not like it: it’s got great energy, great sounds, great songs, it’s melodic, fun, virtuosic … I’m not being funny: I actually don’t know why the world went off this music. – And I have to say a big Heeeeellllllll Yeeeeeeaaaaaaaahhhhhh! \m/ to the signs of its return. Maybe, finally, people might stop being scared of guitarists who can actually play …