The semi-legendary heavy metal outfit known as Quiet Riot is ready to attack once again and quite recently unleashed an 11-track album that looks to both the band’s glorious musical past as well as its future. While firmly rooted in what may be termed old-school metal and hard rock, the record has a modern edge to it as well, which is to say that it sounds neither old nor dated. Rather, “Road Rage” sounds exactly like Quiet Riot ought to sound nowadays. Songs such as “Wasted” and “Still Wild” are filled with awesome hooks and strong melodies while closing track “The Road” is both epic and moving.

 

New singer James Durbin does a great job and sounds utterly convincing all around. Truth be told, it took me a while to get used to his vocals, but after a while they began to grow on me and now I think they sound just right on top of Frank Banali’s lively and cool drumming and Alex Grossi’s wicked riffs. The production of the album does leave something to be desired in that it could have sounded heavier, more hard-hitting, and slightly more punchy, but it does have a nicely raw edge to it, so at least that is something. The songs are generally well-written and everything seems to flow together nicely, but apart from that it feels great to hear and feel that Quiet Riot is a metal force to be reckoned with again. In other words, the band sounds hungry again, at least to these ears.  

Simply put, “Road Rage” will more than likely satisfy any fan of Quiet Riot as well as any fan of classic heavy metal in general out there. Like I said, it is faithful to the band’s back catalogue yet it sounds current and sharp as well, so there is a nice balance there, I think. The bottomline is that if you are on the lookout for quality hard rock/heavy metal with balls to it, look no further than “Road Rage”.

 

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