Riot City
Burn The Night

Who said that the nostalgia effect can't work in 2019?

Because let's be honest, everywhere you turn it seems like we've gone back twenty years. Live-action movies about various The Lion King, Aladdin, Dumbo, endless cooking shows on grandma's recipes, with subsequent competitions, interviews, and whatever else, remasters of popular video games like Crash Bandicoot, Spyro, or Ratchet & Clank for console enthusiasts, and so on.

However, one has to wonder, why does nostalgia manage to make us feel safe, and most of the time we can't quite criticize what twenty, or fifteen years ago seemed perfect to us? Why is it that when something new appears every day, like the latest model of a cellphone, and we don't immediately understand how it works, the instinct is to toss it in a corner to retrieve it later, saying to the friend of the moment "Oh, but do you remember the Nokias we had in middle school? Those indestructible ones? Good times, right?"

That's right, the same thing happens to music in equal measure. Just think about how many bands found themselves in a declining compositional phase and released albums with references to famous records of the past. Gamma Ray did it with "Land Of The Free Pt. II" (2010), Queensrÿche with "Operation: Mindcrime II" (2006), or indirectly even Venom with "Metal Black" (2006). And it goes without saying that the quality of the albums mentioned doesn't even come close to the historic records they reference. However, the name of those masterpieces intrigues, and most importantly brings back memories, so why not?

2019 and nostalgia effect, I wrote at the beginning of the review, therefore. So how is it possible that a band with part of its name linked to one of the most important Power/Heavy U.S. scenes, and a cover directly referencing Judas Priest, hasn't failed in this revival cycle that has been going on relentlessly for years? Because Riot City perfectly manage to recreate the nostalgia effect, without dwelling too long in the past. Active since 2011, these four Canadian guys succeed where many other bands have failed, in recreating typically '80s sounds, without dragging on too long and becoming inconsistent, but going straight to the point. Only in 2019, "Burn The Night" is released, an album that draws heavily, both in the cover as mentioned, and in the sound, from the Judas Priest era of Screaming For Vengeance.

Although composed of 8 tracks, for a duration of just over half an hour, "Burn The Night" successfully focuses the listener's attention on two main points, a production finally different from all the others, which seems to have come directly from an early Vicious Rumors album, and a singer and guitarist, Cale Savy, who manages to draw all the interest to himself. Proving it are tracks like the opener "Warrior Of Time" or "Steel Rider", the latter of which wouldn't have been out of place on Riot's "Thundersteel". It is almost immediately noticeable that Savy's vocal style recalls singers such as Dan Beehler of Exciter, who made those high-pitched screams his trademark, but also John Cyriis of Agent Steel. Other tracks like "The Hunter" or the beautiful "In The Dark" manage to work both as a sort of duel between bass and guitars, and as a stage for Savy's voice that manages to amaze even in lower tones. On the contrary, "Halloween At Midnight" seems to have been composed after listening to the first Stormwitch albums, with those sinister atmospheres that in a certain sense also recall Mercyful Fate. With all these comparisons to historic bands, then, how is it possible to appreciate the band's work itself, without thinking about all these musical references? Because these Canadians have managed to assimilate so many influences and compose an album that did not lack personality, which in my opinion, is quite rare especially in this genre.

It is certain that the upcoming albums will be the acid test to see if the group will stagnate in the past without ever coming out again, or manage to add something each time to characterize their albums differently. Meanwhile, however, from my point of view, "Burn The Night" stands as one of the best classic records of this year, without surprising too much or making a sensation like other albums, but achieving its objective. And I never would have believed it, but for once, I'm glad to have been proven wrong.