I really didn’t see this one coming. What we have here is perhaps the biggest surprise of 2017. Stephen Pearcy, the voice of Ratt, has made one of my favourite albums of the year.
From one perspective, sure, this wouldn’t be totally unheard of. But that is the perspective of my 15-year old self. My adolescent, metal-head self – the one who loved 1980s metal bands, including Ratt, with a passion. Back then, this stuff was frequently my favourite anything. I wouldn’t have seen any reason why these guys couldn’t keep producing their quality music, with the added benefit of experience, well into the future.
Reality would be different: lifestyles caught up. Music fashions changed. Sales dwindled, and the 1980s metal scene all but disappeared. As did a lot of the bands, including Ratt. Most of those who remained, played a more modern form of metal. It wasn’t like it had been in the 1980s any longer.
Pearcy has released several solo efforts and projects over the years, most which have been half decent but really not exceptional. There would be a few good highlights on each album, but the quality of these albums (and the songs on them) would vary.
There was simply no indication of any kind that Stephen Pearcy would put in the effort and take the time to produce a solo album with the quality and consistency of Smash.
It should be stressed that when Ratt reformed in 2010, they released the incredible and highly wonderful Infestation album. This turned out to be one of their better albums ever, even surprising everybody by reaching the Billboard Top 30 and selling some 200,000 copies in the US alone – a highly respectable number for that time. Pearcy is one of three principal songwriters in the band, so he had some influence on the quality of the project. Clearly he has always had it in him to deliver the goods when pushed by bandmates and/or a good producer.
Ratt had a follow-up album in the works, but Pearcy left in 2014 before it was finished, explaining that he was “officially done with having anything to do with them due to the constant turmoil, unresolved business, personal attacks/threats in the public forum, and most of all, the disrespect to the fans.” We now know he was speaking about one particular band member.
With the band in effect folding when Pearcy left, drummer Bobby Blotzer seized control of the band name and put together his own version of Ratt with new members. This led to the current legal battles between Blotzer and the remaining members of the band – who are now looking to reform without Blotzer. This has been quite the drama-filled saga to follow over the past few years, to put it lightly, and isn’t over yet. It would however be far too much to get into here, so leaving it aside for now.
Meanwhile, with Pearcy leaving the band in 2014, he eventually set his sights on recording an album of his own. This makes Smash the first release he’s been involved with since Ratt’s Infestation (2010), and the first solo album he released since Under My Skin (2008), so the gap between albums is either seven or nine years depending on how you look at it.
The fact that Smash took a couple of years to appear speaks to a lot of things, including a different outlook on the album making process. This album is living proof that if you stop, evaluate what you are doing, include good people in the process, allow them to push you, and put in a dedicated and genuine effort to create something of quality, anything can happen. Possibly for the first time in his solo career, Pearcy did everything right, and deserves genuine kudos for it.
From the get-go, it is clear that Pearcy has raised the bar. The album opener I Know I’m Crazy starts with an almost ominous-sounding musical tapestry played on keyboards, not too unlike the intro to Led Zeppelin-songs like In the Light (Physical Graffiti, 1975). Before too long, though, the guitars kick off into a song with brooding verses and energetic choruses. The use of light and shade helps give the material an extra edge. “I know I’m crazy but I, I must be crazy for wanting you,” Pearcy sings with the snarl of a man in pain.
This is not a happy-go-lucky song – there is more going on, which is always more intriguing, and in many ways it sets the tone for the album. His delivery on songs like that fits perfectly, with a more emotive delivery readily injected as needed by the song.
The album does not break new ground. If you liked your melodic hard rock back in the day, you know what you’re getting here as the style hasn’t changed. Except, the song writing on Smash is consistently better and with a bigger scope than on most 80s hard rock albums. The production is miles ahead of your average 80s production, and clearly the benefit of experience, modern technology and advances in making an album sound better all play in. The old spirit is however very much present.
As alluded to earlier, what really gives the album an edge is that these songs are not all about an endless rock’n’roll party. There is a lot of emotion in these songs – touches of moodiness, heartbreak, melancholy, or just being pissed off. I already mentioned the brooding verses of I Must Be Crazy. Another example is Rain, which starts out as a pretty decent rocker, but as Pearcy takes us through the song it becomes clear it is about experiencing loss, and it ends with a poignant and touching piano passage as it plays out. It ends up being an incredibly touching moment. You really didn’t expect that on a Steven Pearcy album, did you?
Rest assured that the album isn’t all about being an emotional rollercoaster – far from it. He knows his old tricks, and pulls them off to perfection on classic-sounding rock anthems like I Can’t Take It and Ten Miles Wide – two of the very best songs on the album. They were quite correctly chosen as singles. They are high quality AND Pearcy sounds just like he did in the 1980s. That in itself is pretty incredible.
And speaking of his voice, let’s cover the obvious: Pearcy has never had the best singing voice around. He’s not a trained singer, cannot hold a note very long, and if you catch him live there can be a lot of bum or off-key notes. He’s never had the BEST singing voice around. What Pearcy has got, though, is a very COOL singing voice. When he hits his stride he’s got the strut, the snarl, the attitude – in short, a delivery that totally works for the material he is offering.
You think you sing better than Pearcy? Maybe you do. But he still sings way cooler than you.
All’s well that ends well, and Summers End brings the album to closure in grand fashion. The song starts like a slow blues rocker, and builds into a mighty groove which even adds a reflective kind of melancholy to the proceedings. It ends up being a very important song on the album. I am not sure I would go as far as to describe the track as an epic, but the sound is huge, grandiose, and with a fitting emotional heft.
It is an ambitious track that works phenomenally well, and ends the album on a very high note. This is a great showcase of the thinking that led to this album being something out of the ordinary. Pearcy has never really attempted anything like this before. If this is his first attempt, he got it in one.
At the end of the day, what we have here is an incredibly well-crafted slice of classic hard rock. The material is consistent and durable, and the quality of the production unquestionable. The album has no filler and the performances are superb. I still remember playing this album for the first time and thinking “holy crap Pearcy, you finally did it!”
The biggest indicator that this album was special was that I kept coming back to it. I would frequently reach the usual point where I move on to the piles of other incoming albums, but I never quite felt that I was done with Smash. I have kept reaching back for it throughout the whole year. Sometimes a song would be stuck in my head, other times I just felt like it had something I had missed for many years and needed to get back to, or whatever. Nearly a year later I am still listening a lot to it. It gives me a personal joy that honestly has surpassed most any other releases this year.
You may or may not feel as strongly as I do about this album, and I’d get it if you don’t – honestly. However, if you have any love whatsoever for 1980s-tinged classic hard rock, and especially if you ever liked Ratt, I cannot imagine that you won’t enjoy this album. Music shouldn’t be serious all the time – it should also be fun, invigorating, and cool.
And it just doesn’t get any cooler than this.
Related: Stephen Pearcy – View To A Thrill (2018)
Facebook Comments