Artist: Loverboy
Label: Frontiers Records
Release: 2012
Runtime: 60:08
Rating: 4/5
Loverboy are yet another multi-platinum North American act that somehow slipped past us while they were raining huge hits down from the sky across their five studio albums, released mostly in the heyday of melodic rock – the eighties. »Rock ‘N’ Roll Revival« is basically a compilation of re-recorded hits, with three brand-new tracks tacked on.
Digging into your golden material, the stuff that made your name and cemented you in the elite of the most successful bands, commercially speaking and within the narrower region of the USA and Canada – Loverboy come from Calgary (Canada), after all – is always a seriously dangerous move, and with the wrong methods it can strip you of all your (hard-earned) credibility. But not in Loverboy’s case, because these guys are far too seasoned old hands to make a mistake here. But let’s take it from the top.
In 2007, Loverboy released their seventh studio album, »Just Getting Started«. A hugely successful comeback record, it proved that the masters of their craft hadn’t run out of inspiration or creative juice. Interestingly, the band then put out no original material at all until 2012. And now 2012 is here. Right now, as I’m writing these very lines of this review, so at the end of August, Loverboy are gearing up for a big joint North American tour through September and October with the kings of AOR, Journey, and the untamed filly of AOR rock, Pat Benatar. Loverboy have been diligently heating up concert stages for the past few years anyway. So they’re in great live shape.
For »Rock ‘N’ Roll Revival« the band used material recorded at recent live shows. In the studio they polished it up afterwards, stripped out all the unnecessary racket caused by the crowd and the unwanted potential side effects like mic feedback etc,… replayed the solos a bit nicer here and there where needed, and added various guitar ornaments, vocal harmonies and keyboard lines on top. The re-recorded hits are basically live versions that were later polished up in the studio and made prettier for the ears. They stand up great. All nine of them. From head to toe. And that’s essential. They capture the pulse of the current state and spirit of the Loverboy camp, who are nowhere near running out of dynamite. That this is a distillation of live shows is shown above all by the closing rock ‘n’ roll charger Hot Girls In Love, with an extended closing bass guitar jam that the original doesn’t have. And here’s the album’s only “flaw”. The track should absolutely have ended with a repeat of the chorus, rather than the band veering out of the jam straight into the song’s ending. The nitpick stings all the more because Hot Girls In Love is parked right at the tail end of »Rock ‘N’ Roll Revival«. But it’s hardly a hugely disturbing factor for this release.
Loverboy always came across as a positive offshoot of rock n’ roll, brushed with a strong touch of big talent and an innate sense for integrating the melodic AOR component with anthemically catchy, singalong choruses that, in hits like these, as a rule, grab you instantly when you listen. Tunes like Always On My Mind, the “Foreigner-ish” Turn Me Loose, the “Leppard-esque” Lovin’ Every Minute Of It, the love-and-lust melodrama When It’s Over, or the ZZ Top-style southern gallop Lucky Ones are hard to escape, since they’re poisonously catchy in their exposed range of high melodic allure. Upbeat studs with their hawk eyes always trained on the comely crew of groupie sweethearts and other bunnies buzzing around them, Loverboy today, even as the old geezers they are now, come across as a sort of distant Canadian version of the west coast AOR masters Night Ranger. Sleazy, cheeky rock n’ roll swagger, with a fully formed and well-defined melodic side that wins you over from the first listen.
So what about the three new songs? They’re seriously good. The band knew it, so it confidently put them right at the opening of the album. They take up spots number one, two and three on the tracklist. From the rapacious, hedonistic charger Rock ‘N’ Roll Revival (here they overlooked that a hi-hat cymbal slightly punches through the picture of the sound production, which is the album’s second minus), to the punchy melodic rock ballad No Tomorrow, to the most convincing of them all, one that could easily have been released as a hit single too, Heartbreaker! In all three of these songs Loverboy prove they haven’t forgotten how to squeeze out the very best they’ve got. Which makes it surprising that the band didn’t hang on another year or so and put together a complete, brand-new standalone studio album, re-recording a few more ultimate “eighties” hits in the meantime, and thus put out two “must have” releases. An expanded edition of the re-recorded classics, with more than just nine tracks, and, as mentioned, a whole new studio album.
Let’s hope a new studio album is cooking and that the band isn’t suffering from a lack of ideas. After the three new songs delivered on this compilation, there’s really nothing to fear on that front. This release is very welcome for anyone among you who doesn’t know the band, because it’s a historical cross-section of Loverboy’s career. In Europe it came out on the Italian label Frontiers Records, so anyone interested in Loverboy shouldn’t have a hard time getting their hands on it. Despite a few minimalist nitpicks in this review, that the whole thing could have been executed even better with a bit more attention from the band, this is a very successful release that, all in all, “holds water” in big gulps, so true melodic rock fans will gladly add it to their CD collections.
Lineup
Mike Reno – vocals
Paul Dean – guitar
Doug Johnson – keyboards
Ken “Spider” Sinnaeve – bass guitar
Matt Frenette – drums
Production
Paul Dean & Bob Rock
Tracklist
1. Rock ‘N’ Roll Revival
2. No Tomorrow
3. Heartbreaker
4. Turn Me Loose
5. Working For The Weekend
6. Lovin’ Every Minute of It
7. The Kid Is Hot Tonight
8. Lucky Ones
9. Always On My Mind
10. Queen Of The Broken Hearts
11. When It’s Over
12. Hot Girls In Love
