Back in the late seventies, a bunch of red-hot rockers from New York City by the name of Riot were causing a public disturbance on this side of the Atlantic. Their brand of kick ass, high-energy heavy metal was perhaps more in tune with the blossoming NWOBHM scene in the UK than it was with the rock scene of their native America at that time. They were championed by legendary NWOBHM DJ Neal Kay, and landed at slot at the inaugural Donington Monsters Of Rock in 1980. Tracks like 'Warrior' and 'Road Racin'' stood up to anything Riot's UK counterparts were producing at the time, and in the albums 'Rock City', 'Narita' and the big selling 'Fire Down Under', Riot delivered three nuggets of rock solid heavy metal gold.

Sadly their star faded soon after as the band suffered the all too familiar pitfalls of multiple line-up changes, break ups and reformations, declining sales and ever changing record companies. The 1988 album 'Thundersteel' saw the band resurrect themselves with a new vocalist in the shape of Tony Moore and the band's sound moving in a power metal direction. It's that 'Thundersteel' line-up of the band, led by original guitarist Mark Reale, that has got back together for 'Immortal soul', the first new Riot album for five years.

Having stuck to that power metal sound pioneered on 'Thundersteel' to be honest, I find that it's a mixed bag. Opener 'Riot' for example is a peach, a full throttle old school thrash attack, with Moore's high pitch vocals giving Rob Halford a run for his money, this is easily the best thing on the album. Meanwhile 'Still Your Man' and 'Believe' are good, solid slabs of melodic power metal, well written with strong vocal melodies. 'Crawling' has a bit of an epic feel to it, whilst 'Whiskey Man' is perhaps the only track bearing any kind of resemblance to Riot's early stuff. Although well produced and well played, the rest of the album tends to be a bit samey, and the songs are frankly very average power metal by numbers affairs, lacking any real spark.

When you consider that Riot's first album, 'Rock City', was released in 1977, it makes you realise this was a band that was innovative, unique, and almost ahead of their time. That's why they became such a popular cult band for those early years. Unfortunately, Riot in 2011, albeit essentially a completely different band, lack that originality and now sound like a derivative power metal act, like oh so many others. This isn't a terrible album by any means, it has its moments, but on the whole it really is a bit of a disappointment.

http://riotrockcity.com/