Style: hard rock
Label: Portrait
Year: 1999
Home: n/a
Members: Stephen Pearcy ~ vocals
Warren DeMartini ~ guitar/b. vocals
Robbie Crane ~ bass/b. vocals
Bobby Blotzer ~ drums
Comeback/reunion albums are, by their very nature, always exciting. Some are like not a day has passed musically, for example The Cars & the Monkees reunion albums. Others sound very different & really can't be compared to earlier days of the band, but still rock, such as Heart's Red Velvet Car. Others are a great mix of old meets retro & even reach new heights, such as Tesla's later releases. Some are their own entity that have no counterpart in the past, such as Steve Perry's Traces. Others rock, but yet something doesn't quite click. Is it the slighter older voices & change in playing styles? Is it the dynamics of a different line-up, or the loss of a key member? Is it a different producer or songwriter or outside influence? Is it the attempt to recapture the past, but the moment has passed & now it sounds either nostalgic or stale depending on who is talking, or is a desire to step away from the past? Is it he lack of drugs, or lack of commercial success, or ... ? So many comeback albums you want to like, but you sometimes wonder if a band's catalog would be fine without them. They don't tarnish the reputation, but they are not necessarily adding anything. There's so many variables that go into a comeback or reunion album that its almost impossible to say what makes a band create a masterpiece & a few years later pour out a dud. These are the albums you want to like more than you do. If its not obvious, this reunion/comeback album by Ratt, simply called Ratt but nicknamed by fans 1999 to not be confused with their earlier self-titled album, is one of these hard to love albums. The band had dissolved & gotten back together with potentially renewed energy, but yet something on the album doesn't do that energy justice. It has some great moments, but the end feeling leaves one wanting, even on repeated listens. Perhaps its the fact that the songwriting of bassist Juan Croucier is now gone, who wrote or co-wrote many of the band's hits. He's been replaced by Robbie Crane, who is a competent bassist but doesn't contribute lyrically. How much he contributed to molding the music without credit I don't know. While the band is now a quartet with the departure of guitarist Robbin Crosby, so one might guess guitarist Warren DiMartini is now running the show musically far more than ever. Warren is an under-rated lead guitarist was had a technique his peers didn't, yet something here feels derivative & more imitative than original. Ratt might not always have been the most creative band on the strip, at least on first listen, but they had a unique sound that remains not duplicated & immediately recognizable beyond just Pearcy's vocals. This album doesn't have that. It doesn't grab you, nor stay with you, nor does it feel like Ratt. It is an album that feels like it is not looking to repeat the past, but instead looking to the music trends around it & wanting to be a part of them. To this end comes its imitative feel. It is almost like the guys grabbed a lot of trendy styles, played around with them, duplicated them, but didn't inject the trademarkable Ratt sound into them. The styles control the band, versus the band controlling the styles. Ratt kicks off sounding like Stone Temple
Pilots now fronted by Stephen Pearcy with thick multi-layered guitars & moody vocals. There's nothing wrong with S.T.P.,
but they aren't sleazy Sunset Strip & they aren't Ratt. What follows is just as much always sounding like another band, & not Ratt. On first listen, if one didn't know, they might even guess this to be a Pearcy solo album, as he's known for reaching far beyond the Ratt template. This should be a good thing, yet its a distinctiveness as something different than the past just doesn't quite hit home. Its not a bad album, but somehow sounds stale. It rocks, but never in high gear. Pearcy is on point, but never seems to be throwing his guts into the arena. He sounds bored, like he's letting the music take all the burdens of grabbing the listener's ears. It does, to some extent, but the mix of guitars & vocals is the key to Ratt. There's obvious hits, but somehow they feel like they could have been cranked up another notch. They don't feel dangerous, like Ratt once did, while the dangerous highlights are lost in the mix. There's some missteps where you feel like the band went left when they should have gone right. Its an odd disenchanting feeling. There's actually a lot of good playing here, but compared to the early days ... well, its better not to compare. That might be the problem with many reunion/comeback albums. You really have to take them on their own. That being said, taking this album on its own doesn't do it much help. It has moments, but most albums do. I do not know what dynamics went into this album. Maybe they needed an outside songwriter or a different producer, but something in hindsight could have been better. Maybe if this was any other band this might be a high mark, otherwise it ends up being something feeling more transitional. It doesn't even feel nostalgic, which is the bigger irony. I should confess I love Ratt & Stephen Pearcy, including his solo bands. Yet, this is not the Ratt album I want to come home to. This doesn't feel like home, but I wish it did. I can hear it might be a good home with a little touch-up.
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