RATT – Infestation

Ratt is back. For it’s members to again adorn the schreecy, colorful clothes of years gone past would’ve been stretching it, but as one listen to the music present and view of the artwork, one thing is clear; where is the model to accompany the songs? Representatives should’ve been out and about, making their way on the search for America’s cutest cheerleader, watch gym surveillance cameras and scanning through Victoria’s Secret catalogs, unveiling the secret. As Ratt themselves once said: want a woman… dammit! Or at least a pretty girl…

However, the songs and delivery this time around should be enough to toss suffering Ratt fans a boner. The hatchet’s buried (for the time being) and Stephen Pearcy’s patented snarl accompany Warren DeMartini’s trademark sound as the guitarist trades licks and leads with the latest member of the pack, former Quiet Riot bender Carlos Cavazo, that’s unmistakably Ratt. Underneath it all Bobby Blotzer, the one member that never really left during a career that saw the band never officially calling it quits, lays a nice fat foundation in conjunction with bassist Robbie Crane.

If fans were worried about super catchy lead-off single “Best Of Me” being a trifle too Pop-ish, Infestation otherwise serves all out Hard Rock. At times bearing a rough heaviness reminiscent of very early Ratt in the likes off “Look Out Below” and Rock steady (hint!) “Lost Weekend”. Whereas “Take A Big Bite” is the tongue-in-cheek “Riffy Rocker” Mötley Crüe has failed to provide to the public for years. It all sits as good company to archetypal Ratt in the form “A Little Too Much” and “Eat Me Up Alive”, in a collection of material that, with the exception of the slow-paced “Take Me Home”, may be Ratt’s most even collection of songs since its Out Of The Cellar heyday.

Infestation inevitably marks the question why something this good ever came to a halt.