Author: Aleš Podbrežnik
Artist: Night Ranger
Label: Frontiers Records
Release: 2017
Rating: 4/5
Night Ranger are one of those winning stories of a band that ruled the eighties, especially on the American rock’n’roll pulpit, and with their hits thoroughly shook up the top of the best-selling album and singles charts. Today the band is regarded as one of the founders of the so-called west coast / AOR genre, a club that also counts the great Journey, plus Survivor and Boston. Compared to their contemporaries, Night Ranger have kept all of their creative firepower well into their mature years. That only proves the camaraderie in this crew is truly exceptional. And the pillars of the band’s stability remain, after all these years, guitarist Brad Gillis, bassist and vocalist Jack Blades, and drummer and vocalist Kelly Keagy.
What’s more, the whole thing works for Night Ranger as if the ambition and drive of the boys only grow and get stronger with the years. Some time ago the band fully brought experienced guitarist Keri Kelli (Alice Cooper) into the fold, as a replacement for the defector Joel Hoekstra, who plays for Whitesnake these days. During his break-in period, Kelli was first »warmed up« for quite a while. In the role of auxiliary live member.
Since the creative nucleus stays the same and the bulk of the songs are written by Jack Blades and Kelly Keagy, the musical pose, both in terms of sound and attitude, remains spotless. What’s more, the new album »Don’t Let Up« is fresh proof that the creative juices in the camp are nowhere near running dry. It has everything we demand from this incredibly experienced band, well belted with road mileage, a band we always hold to high expectations thanks to the top-quality artistry on offer. On »Don’t Let Up« Night Ranger remain big optimists and positively minded gentlemen. Always ready for a good laugh, for a good time. The album is packed with mischievous spice, especially thanks to some incredibly striking riffs and incredibly witty guitar playing from the superb Gillis. The newcomer Keri Kelli is no silent bystander here, either. He actively joins in on the soloing within the middle eights of the songs, and the guitar duo converses (within the format of the compositions) in harmonious dialogue. The same goes for the melodies, which, through the nature of the lyrics, get an extra dose of boisterous playfulness, if not downright cheeky humor. The vocal delivery of Jack Blades and Kelly Keagy is full of surplus emotion and passion. Over the years a bit of noble »rust« has clung to the vocals, which goes above all for Keagy’s vocal form, but no fear, it’s been skillfully masked in the studio.
The album has remarkable liveliness and dynamics. Night Ranger tour heavily in North America all the time, and that playing fire carries over effectively into the studio format of the new songs. If you’re drawn to deep ingenuity in guitar playing, which gives rise to the character of a highly insightful storm of top-class virtuosity swirling through the new album, you’ll find plenty of fun on »Don’t Let Up« from start to finish. The band isn’t nostalgically trying to re-create the energy and image of the eighties releases that brought them fame. For this legendary AOR quintet in 2017, that kind of move would border on pathetic. No. Even in their mature years, Night Ranger fearlessly tackle ideas they haven’t tried to this day, and they do it all with great distinction, since the musical identity of the new album keeps every trademark that defines the band’s music. That wasn’t hard to pick out on either of their two excellent studio predecessors, »Somewhere in California« (2011) and its follow-up »High Road« (2014). Evolution isn’t over for Night Ranger, and at the same time the band holds on to an incredible youthful glow and the fire with which their rock’n’roll philosophy is still infused in their mature years.
The songs are once again polished down to the finest detail through their arrangements. The production is flawless and lively, with contrasts fully exploited in building the sonic landscape. There’s no dip in quality between songs, while the run of eleven new tracks achieves a really nice degree of variety and shifts in mood, the kind of wisdom you can only fully cultivate over a long stretch of making music. The album builds high intensity through its dynamic flow of events and keeps the listener fully engaged the whole time. In short. Immodestly put, for a band that has survived and seen all the ups and downs in its long-lived career, »Don’t Let Up« is one of the best releases to come out this year (on the international scene) in the AOR/melodic rock genre.
Night Ranger – Day And Night (official video):
Lineup
Jack Blades – bass, vocals
Kelly Keagy – drums, vocals
Brad Gillis – guitar
Eric Levy – keyboards
Keri Kelli – guitar
Production
Night Ranger
Tracklist
1. Somehow Someway
2. Running Out Of Time
3. Truth
4. Day And Night*
5. Don’t Let Up
6. Won’t Be Your Fool Again
7. Say What You Want
8. We Can Work It Out
9. Comfort Me
10. Jamie
11. Nothing Left Of Yesterday
