Riot — Thundersteel/ Privilege Of Power

Riot are a old school heavy metal band who later turned into more a speed/ power metal band. The band originally formed in New York back in 1976 & are still active today, through they’ve had many line-up changers over the years with Guitarist Mark Reale been the only original member in the now present line-up. This double disc reissue offers up two of the bands most popular & respected albums from the late 80’s & early 90’s; when they had become more of a speed/power metal band with some old school metal edger’s.

On the first disc we have ‘Thundersteel’ from 1988 which is the more straight forward metal record of the two albums on offer here. It’s an enjoyable collection of chugging, sometimes speedy & memorable metal craft that you can hear hints of Judas Priest; vocalist Tony Moore  has some very Halford like highs going on here & also some of the riff craft is quite Priest like. There are also touches of other NWOBM here too with some Iron Maiden like riff raisers & chorus harmoincs. The other influences is  more harmonic, american sounding speedy & virtuoso metal bands of 80’s like Savatage, Antrax & Cacophony. The band also manage to weave in more clear, harmonic & sometimes acoustic elements to which gives a nice contrast when playing the album as a whole. But for all the above mentioned sonic references Riot are far from a copy band & ‘Thundersteel’ has enough charm & distinctive edger’s to stand up as a fine example of often speed bound, but always melody lined 80’s metal.

The second album on offer here is ‘The Privilege of Power’ from 1990 & this saw the band go more edgy & experimental (to an extent!) adding in horn elements, tv & media samples heavy song introductions, some subtle turntable scratching & a more arty prog metal take on song writing. Though for all the more ‘experimental’, arty & often loose ‘the media  is controlling us all’ album concept; there are still some great slices of memorable metal writing going on here. And the atmosphere of the samples & ‘experimental’ edger’s really boost this to the classic album category as the band are really attempting to do something a little bit different with the 80’s melodic speed metal format.

The reissues topped off with a 12 page booklet featuring old pictures of the band & an informative write-up about the bands history in general & of course the backgrounds behind both ‘Thundersteel’ & ‘The Privilege of Power’. All told a worthy reissue of these two highly enjoyable often speed bound, but always melody lined 80’s & 90’s metal records.