Author: Aleš Podbrežnik
Artist: Riot
Label: SPV Records
Release: 2011
Running time: 52:24
Rating: 4/5
“Too old to rock n’ roll, too young to die!” goes that ancient Jethro Tull line, and it often fits Riot’s career like a glove. Riot, the New York outfit whose roots go all the way back to 1975, are something of a tragic figure on the rock scene. When they started out, their music sounded ahead of its time, freshly inspired. Even before the metal boom hit, Riot were crafting outstanding songs built on hard-hitting heavy riffs, enriched with a brilliant touch of twin guitar harmonies in thirds. Then the N.W.O.B.H.M. boom swallowed them up with ungrateful vehemence and steered the first generation of metal masses on this planet away from this truly talented, creatively fertile and in many ways pioneering band. Yep. In their early days, Riot were surely one of the most interesting, yet to this very day unjustly overlooked, devoutly chiselled heavy metal bands of the classic old-school flavor.
Three years ago the band came together again in the classic Thundersteel lineup (plus Mike Flyntz). When Tony Moore announced his departure from Riot yet again at the end of 2009, it looked like there would be no new album. But the following year he changed his mind and rejoined the band, which finally managed to push out its new studio album “Immortal Soul” this year. For Riot, the album “Thundersteel” was a new musical milestone back in 1988. With it, the band signed up to pure-blooded heavy metal, and the “romance” of hard rock, which more or less ended with the album “Born In America” (1983), was left with little room on “Thundersteel”. “Immortal Soul” is really “Thundersteel” No. 2. It’s hardly any other way when the hyperactive screamer Tony Moore and the one-of-a-kind drummer Bobby Jarzombek both rejoin the band.
Immortal Soul is a manifesto of metal purity, full of melodic principle, which in this new era naturally also hooks into the modern reaches of power metal. Tony Moore’s vocals, which pull toward Rob Halford (Judas Priest) in tone even in the mid registers, and the distinctive, instantly recognizable rolling of Jarzombek’s drum fortress, especially the way he shoves and weaves the double bass drum pedals into the transitions, even bring up some fitting musical parallels with the look and feel of Halford’s debut “Ressurection” (2000). Those occasional, pleasantly tickling little nods are, of course, fully covered across “Immortal Soul” by the authentic “Riot-style” essence.
This is a band that has always been famous for a refined sense of how to get the most out of leading melodic, anthemic motifs, with a mood-driven “crescendo” in the chorus melodies. Riffs steeped in twin harmonies in guitar thirds can be heard at every turn. The indispensable Riot essence, of course! There’s something on the album for everyone. It’s the kind of band manifesto that hits the hearts of true Riot fans square on, while still being accessible to all the freshly fired-up power metallers who’ve only just begun exploring planet Metal.
The strongest link to the old seventies hard rock school on the new album is embodied by, for instance, Still Your Man, which is really a kind of second part of Johnny’s Back (“Thundersteel”, 1988) , and toward the end of the album the band’s heavy rock roots are vividly recalled by the rowdy Whiskey Man! Among the darker moments, the psycho discourse in Crawling stands out, and a dynamic shift in atmosphere lifts it effectively, thanks to an excellent new anthem-spiced chorus. For all of you craving some kind of resurrection of the energy of the album “Thundersteel”, know that you needn’t worry for a second that you’ll miss it on “Immortal Soul”. The album opener, a speed-wound ultra-fast metal “stunner” called Riot, will shoot you straight into the heart of the opening of the album “Thundersteel”. No less relentless is the bite of the new, melodically brilliantly forged metal assault Wings Are For Angels, and a little later Sins Of The Father. Those are the three white-hot, neighing attacks of Riot metal on the album! The anthemic atmosphere of true “Riot-style” melodically seasoned grandeur sparkles in the title track, Insanity, and the excellent closer Echoes. The album’s dynamic flow is high, thanks to clear shifts of mood across a varied set of differently arranged songs.
Moore bites with his vocals like in the golden days, the guitar riffs sound fresh, provocatively inspired and welded together under the baton of the most authentic Riot jurisdiction! The bass lines dig in with a pulse and cut through reinforced concrete with feather-light ease, all of it sitting on top of a tank-like mass powered by that famous, one-of-a-kind drum power plant called Bobby Jarzombek. “Immortal Soul” is truly an album of a great comeback, of a great band, and an album that instantly wins you over with its, for the mature and seasoned Riot veterans still boyishly untamed momentum, with the authentic old-school metal craft as understood most deeply by its very creators.. True to the spirit of the title about an “immortal soul”, it’s a new blessed manifesto of the immortality of that unique magic that only heavy metal can embody!
Lineup
Tony Moore – vocals
Mark Reale – guitar
Mike Flyntz – guitar
Don Van Stavern – bass
Bobby Jarzombek – drums
Production
Mark Reale
Track list
1. Riot (5:00)
2. Still Your Man (4:13)
3. Crawling (5:48)
4. Wings Are For Angels (5:07)
5. Fall Before Me (4:57)
6. Sins Of The Father (3:50)
7. Majestica (0:59)
8. Immortal Soul (4:41)
9. Insanity (4:36)
10. Whiskey Man (4:17)
11. Believe (4:19)
12. Echoes (4:53)
