Label: Frontiers Music Srl.
Release date: August 6, 2021
Production: Night Ranger
Album length: 49.22 min.
Genre: Hard Rock / Arena Rock
Rating: 9.0/10
Night Ranger are one of those bands that landed in the right place at the right time. At the dawn of the eighties, or just a little before, which is why they enjoy legend status today. The status of one of the pioneering bands, or let’s just say one of the essential bands that popularized the phenomenon of arena rock, and AOR too, in the eighties, especially on the wings of hits like Sister Christian, Don’t Tell Me You Love Me, (You Can Still) Rock In America, When You Closew Your Eyes and Sentimental Street. In short, Night Ranger are a band that has seen it all and survived it all. The golden eighties, the crisis-ridden nineties, and then the band found its footing again with the album “Somewhere In California” (2011). And here they are. With a new album.
The bar has always been high when a new Night Ranger album is on the way. This time the album is “ATBPO”, which stands for “And The Band Played On”. That has nothing to do with some tribute to British metal warhorses Saxon, but simply with Night Ranger’s ever-restless, exuberant spirit, which doesn’t let up even in their mature years, or at least shows no signs of slowing down in any way. Creatively, and in terms of energy and vibe. The new album still radiates the energy of 20-year-old studs who have only just started their careers and are itching to prove themselves. Enviable for a band formed in San Francisco in 1979.
The creative core is still here. It’s called Keagy-Blades-Gillis! On “ATBPO” the band stuck to the course it has reliably followed since “Somewhere In California”. They keep up a sharp-witted approach to songwriting that guarantees captivating listenability, crossed with hard-edged, energetic rock’n’roll kinetics. In that sense it’s easy to spot that the band members grew up on the sounds of classic Beatles evergreens (The Beatles), which is again perfectly “slipped in”, or repackaged, into the band’s so-called unique musical ID card, which has now gotten its new chapter on “ATBPO”. Yes. There are no quality dips across the band’s last four studio albums. Anyone who knows their sound, especially “Don’t Let Up” (2017), will be thrilled with “ATBPO” too.
The Kelli-Gillis guitar tandem shines once again. If nowhere else, you can hear it in the track Breakout, which opens with guitar harmonies, but once it hits the mid-eight passage, a blazing guitar cannonade simply steps into the absolute center of everything that’s going on. Gillis is still regarded as one of the sharpest guitar gurus and true originals in the genre Night Ranger belong to. Let’s just call it the era of classic hard rock bands. His approach is in fact a hugely important building block of the elements that have always given Night Ranger their trademark sheen of uniqueness and distinctiveness. His arsenal of ideas, his insight and his wit are, in a word, outstanding and flawless, and the playing is, plainly and frankly, one of the most wonderful experiences when listening to the band’s latest studio effort (and the earlier ones too). Like I said, Breakout is way out in front in this respect. Then there’s Cold Aa December, where Gillis showers the intro with an incredible flurry of varied licks that adorn the lead phrase. The fascination with the guitar work of both guitarists never runs dry.
The variety of ideas is fascinating. Hard To Make It Easy, for example, is rock’n’roll with honky-tonk touches on piano. It’s playful and haughty at the same time. With the sentiment that is so well known with this band and is in fact their trademark. In any case, among these fun rock romps, like Bring It All Love To Me, the excellent Dance, which would’ve been a sure-fire hit in the eighties, or the opener Coming For You, the album also carries a few that are a touch wistful and melancholic, like Cols As December and The Hardest Road. There’s the cheeky, pulp-possessed Monkey, while the closing stretch of the album belongs to pure optimism in the very classically cut A Lucky Man and the hope-filled Tomorrow.
Eleven tracks with a superbly polished, well-grounded expressive character, which astound with constantly inventive and inspired songwriting that combines high musical hunger with unbridled, high-octane burning of high rock voltage. An exceptionally accomplished, finely crafted record! That’s the new Night Ranger album. The release itself is one of the highlights of this year’s hard rock releases. Older, more experienced, cunning and, last but not least, if you like, crazier and wilder. Clearly this band of legendary standing hasn’t said everything yet.
Author: Aleš Podbrežnik
