Artist: Ratt
Label: Roadrunner Records
Release: 2010
Length: 42:14
Rating: 4.5/5
This one is a straight-up miracle of an album. Can you believe the odds of making a record that slots perfectly into the continuity of your own great catalog, the kind of catalog that defined a certain period, a musical movement, a genre, a trend. An era. Glam metal? B? Where’s that at? And what even is that? The years of big carefree rock parties, broken beds, slogans calling for total debauchery and chasing skirts. Ratt, who etched their names in history with killer releases and basically took on the role of one of the most characteristic glam metal bands of the late eighties and early nineties, are yet another big comeback on today’s creatively (impoverished) scene.
These findings are unbelievable, because Ratt aren’t the only ones this year to put out a brand-new album after a long break, one that doesn’t stray an inch from the golden era. Just think of the new Y&T album, or the new FM album. So Ratt weren’t swallowed up by the burden of studio and stylistic trends of the new era, which is what like a landslide of falling dominoes took down (or is taking down) the likes of Europe, Bon Jovi, Def Leppard, ah, I have a feeling I’ve already written lines like these somewhere else this year… In short, when you spin “Infestaiton”, one thing is certain. Glam never died, and the grunge virus that “devoured” the glam guys in the nineties (and a few other things too) never happened!
Let’s rewind a bit so the whole “Infestation” picture comes together more easily. What we have here is the second Ratt reunion (the first happened in 1996). “Unemployed” guitarist Carlos Cavazo was called up to fill the spot of the late Robbin Crosby. DeMartini was looking for someone who could hold his own as an equal in a dialogue of guitar duels. DeMatrtini wanted the new album to bring the band to somewhere between “Out Of The Cellar” and its follow-up “Invasion Of Your Privacy”. It’s a pipe dream, of course, to ever get another album from Ratt exactly like those two, but still. Hand on heart, Ratt don’t need one in 2010. That was just a kind of loose goal for the guitarist in the lead-up to “Infestation”. The death of Kevin DuBrow, the Quiet Riot singer, led drummer Frankie Banali to officially declare that he never intends to revive Quiet Riot. Without Kevin DuBrow it really makes no sense, since the singer was too recognizable a figure in that band, and that’s perfectly clear to Banali. So Quiet Riot’s guitarist at the time, Carlos Cavazo, was left without a job. It was meant to be, because this skilled guitarist confirmed right away with his arrival in Ratt that he’s more than a perfect fit for the lineup. He slipped into “the King’s” shoes without a hitch, and Ratt could fully realize their vision!
And the result? “Infestiation” is a chiseled Ratt album that keeps the vision of their classic works alive. Stephen Pearcy stays in his signature element, defined by a sharp, biting vocal approach with a cheeky dose of naughty impudence and the venom of rebellious untamability! Despite the fact that the guy has already hit his fifties, Ratt remain lyrically right where they were 15 years ago. Nightlife in Los Angeles? Then and now, the way Hollywood stars lived it and still live it, and of course our happily “surviving” glam guys!
Ratt carried over all the sonic power from the classic albums to the new one, that direct ride, the galloping riff-and-rhythm march through the record, “simple” but concise and high-energy statements that don’t skimp one bit on the enormous punch of all that cheeky Ratt N’ Roll voltage. The band doesn’t know where the brake lever is! Ballads ignored! The album opens with the angry, mocking and as-direct-as-it-gets Eat Me Up Alive, which immediately signals that Ratt haven’t stopped and have no intention of stopping. It instantly serves up all the qualities we truly didn’t expect after such a long break, and so it grabs the listener’s attention all the more successfully and glues them to the rest of the album. Best Of Me switches to a new session with the ladies, and the way the song develops even calls up a bit of Van Halen-style messaging, which Eddie will be grateful for at most. A Lttle Too Much doesn’t waste words on excessive glass-tilting or consuming opiates of all kinds, with a cranked-up rock n’roll drive of potently arrogant noise. Last Call picks up its energy afterward, in the cheekiest manner possible, and the captured vibe evokes the energy of the opening “headkick” Eat Me Up Alive.
The production is stripped down, with no “eighties” hyper-polishing, no deliberate “arena” pumping-up of the individual sonic building blocks, and not a shred of pretentiousness. On the new album Ratt are as naked and alive as they get. The bass shoves and rips wildly, as if cutting through concrete, and the two guitars are scorchingly, emphatically alive. They link up superbly in combinations of split passages. DeMartini has kept his excellent feel for the right (measured) amount of notes in solos or transitional flourishes. Once again we can’t “escape” the refined spices the guitarist adds with the cunning use of tremolo and perfectly dosed pull-offs. The guitar work on “Infestation” is a real little school of expression, working at full effect to build up the high potency of this product and its melodicism. Ratt keep that great middle gear, carried over from the classic releases into the new era, between an innate sense of melody and direct punchiness. In the live-sounding production the listener is exposed throughout to extreme contrasts between the instruments. Blotzer’s drums “kill”. And not because of hyper-production, like what we used to get from the Ratt studio. On the new record the reach of the liveliness of Blotzer’s “unstoppable torpedo grinding” is maxed out! It was kind of hard to watch him as Lawless’s W.A.S.P. legionnaire, every time you called to mind his work with Ratt. Welcome home, Bobby!
Pearcy remains unshakably venomous and arrogant, as ordered. You can feel it’s pitched a touch lower, which is what the years bring, but the vocal remains the band’s indispensable integrity and honestly still an irreplaceable trademark! The band didn’t use any extra sound-warping effects in the studio to get closer to creating a certain atmosphere at points on the album. There’s no “excess” rasp or feeling of out-of-tune strings anywhere, and Pearcy’s vocal stays “unwarped”. It is occasionally harmonized in the choruses with backing vocals, though, which was always one of the requirements in building Ratt’s musical expression. So what we have here is an album that nicely sums up the production authenticity and capitalization of the studio work.
This album is stocked from head to toe with polished, compact fireballs that don’t waver in quality from one to the next. This is an album that spins through the player in the blink of an eye, and all the expressed power and voltage are so cocky that “Infestation” just won’t, and won’t, come out of the player. If this album had come out after Ratt’s “Detonator”, it would be considered yet another Ratt classic today. And of course. With the self-titled release in 1999, the guys were kind of “feeling around”, and “Infestation” now fixes every last sensation that hinted at a lack of “clear vision” or wandering in an expressive “fog”. “Infestation” is a manifesto of firm focus and the best that all of us devotees of the glam metal continuity tradition can possibly expect today. Today. Because, after all, it’s 2010!
So Ratt have put out an unburdened album. Unburdened by the reach of modern trends, which many of their same-vintage peers are succumbing to in the new era. How come a band like Ratt can understand that you have to play and make music that comes from the heart, that only such music ultimately satisfies their most devoted fans, who have stuck with the band to this day, and that such sincerity most easily “buys” the affection of all the younger music lovers who are fired up about the glam metal tradition. “Infestation” is the manifesto of the new Ratt, embodying the extraordinary integrity the band has reached today after the reunion, after past “shipwrecks” (Crosby’s death, courtroom suing over the use of the name in the nineties, etc…). They only wanted to put out an album. The kind they genuinely feel inside themselves. The hatchets are buried. The guys in the band have the same creative focus ahead of them. Judging by the form the new Ratt have shown, let’s just hope “Infestation” isn’t the last Ratt album. Welcome home, guys, and see you on your first comeback tour in Europe!
Lineup
Stephen Pearcy – vocals
Warren DeMartini – guitar
Carlos Cavazo – guitar
Robbie Crane – bass guitar
Bobby Blotzer – drums
Production
Michael Baskette
Track list
1. Eat Me Up Alive (4:13)
2. Best Of Me (4:19)
3. A Little Too Much (4:05)
4. Look Out Below (3:44)
5. Last Call (3:55)
6. Lost Weekend (3:46)
7. As Good As It Gets (4:38)
8. Garden Of Eden (3:03)
9. Take A Big Bite (2:46)
10. Take Me Home (4:23)
11. Don’t Let Go (3:22)
