Riot - Immortal Soul

1. Still Your Man
2. Riot
3. Crawling
4. Wings Are for Angels
5. Sins of the Father
6. Fall Before Me
7. Majestica
8. Immortal Soul
9. Insanity
10. Whiskey man
11. Believe
12. Echoes

Label: Steamhammer/SPV

Release date:
Germany 28.10.2011
EU October 31st
USA Canada November 22nd

Ok, I will admit upfront that I have not followed Riot's career for the past 20 years. I am an old school Riot fanatic, and cut my teeth on Fire Down Under and Restless Breed; I love the Rhett Forrester years the most, and just as much, the early Guy Speranza years. When Thundersteel came out in 1988 with new vocalist Tony Moore, I listened to it, and it was good, but the band "felt" different to me, and eventually got lost in the huge amount of 80's bands that were around at the time. Tony recorded two albums with the band before leaving in 1992, and over the years I have revisited a few releases here and there, but again, they just never grabbed me and held me (I guess I listen to way to many different bands).

The band has went through many line-ups, and different vocalists over the years, but now, with 2011, after more than 20 apart, they have come back around to the Thundersteel line-up consisting of Tony Moore (vocals), Mark Reale (guitar), Don Van Stavern (bass) and Bobby Jarzombek (drums) plus live guitarist Mike Flyntz, and I am again listening...and enjoying.

This stuff is great, classic metal sound, very reminiscent of Thundersteel but without sounding dated. Actually, I hate this idea of music sounding dated, since to me musical styles are musical styles, not dated styles. If a band came around today playing classic rock like Deep Purple in the 60-70 era, I would not call it dated, I would call it classic blues rock. So many bands overseas have come back to the classic melodic and power metal sounds, so it is not date, it is a style that many people prefer. Sorry, off my soapbox now, back to the review. 


This release provides an amazing musical experience of full throttle classic metal. I can see this release bringing them even greater popularity overseas; I just wish America would return to favor with this style of music because bands like this really do deserve some attention for music this good. True, no new ground is really broken on a release like this, but what kind of new ground is expected to be seen? This is a solid metal release from a band that has been putting out quality music since 1975. A release like this is making me desire to go back and revisit the back catalog to see what I may have really missed these past couple decades. These guys still have it after all of these years, and I like it. Fans of Hammerfall, Helloween, Inner Wish, (new) Accept, Circle II Circle, Cage, and any other such power metal/euro-metal type bands, should really enjoy this return by an American classic band.