QUIET RIOT – Hollywood Cowboys (2019)

Legendary hard rockers QUIET RIOT will release their new studio album, “Hollywood Cowboys”, on November 8 via Frontiers Music. The band continues their historic journey with founding member and drummer Frankie Banali, who is joined by veteran bassist Chuck Wright (who has been in and out of the band since 1982) and guitarist Alex Grossi (member since 2004). With their latest release “Road Rage” Quiet Riot introduced to the fans powerhouse vocalist James Durbin, who stepped in the eleventh hour to give his imprint to the new songs.

However… Durbin quit almost immediately after the record was delivered to the label and the filming of the video was done,”to concentrate his time and efforts on his solo career”. Immediately he was replaced with Jizzy Pearl, who previously fronted Quiet Riot from 2013 until October 2016.

Anyway, musically, the new album offers exactly what you would expect from Quiet Riot: arena ready 80s hard rock with strong hooks and infectious riffs, along with a maturity in the songwriting that only a band with such a history and pedigree can offer.
“Hollywood Cowboys” finds us in familiar territory with a thumping rocking album that opens with ‘Don’t Call It Love’, an anthemic chunk of rock with grinding guitar riffs and the sound of a band rolling back the years.

‘In The Blood’, ‘Heartbreak City’ and ‘The Devil That You Know’ continue in the same vein, the latter allowing Durbin to show off his vocal range and give the fans what they have become used to from Quiet Riot over the years. While his voice is very reminiscent of Kevin DuBrow’s at times, it’s never quite been the same without Kevin belting out the tunes.

If changing lead singers wasn’t enough, drummer Frankie Banali recently announced that he is battling stage 4 Pancreatic Cancer. It seems that Frankie has been fighting the illness since April of this year.
Frankie’s drum parts are spectacular throughout this album. It’s almost as if he’s using the drums as his own personal therapy. Indeed, the drumming on this album is without a doubt, top-notch. It’s Frankie Banali, at his very best.

‘Change Or Die’ is a powerhouse of a track with the whole band rocking’ out and once again Durbin’s voice soars, but with a gritty edge that works really well. ‘Roll On’ sees us at the halfway mark of the album and we slow down with a really bluesy, earthy track that sees the band in a more melancholy mood but still nailing it.

The calm doesn’t last long though and the band are soon back to their rocking best with one of my favorite tracks on the album, ‘Insanity’ which allows Alex Grossi to cut loose and give us a blistering guitar attack, be that the grinding background or the searing solos and he is ably assisted by the whole band here, who sound like they are really enjoying this one.

‘Hellbender’ is full of chugging riffs that carry the listener along as it slowly seeps into your brain before ‘Wild Horses’ which never reaches the heady heights of some of those tracks that have gone before.
A short acoustic intro takes us into ‘Holding On’ with Durbin and Grossi dueling throughout, with the (ex) frontman giving us a superb rock vocal while Grossi is again let loose with a scorching guitar solo.
We are then into the final two tracks of the album ‘Last Outcast’ and ‘Arrows And Angels’, which pick up the pace once again and bring proceedings to a thumping conclusion.

With so many line up changes over the years, it’s almost impossible to say what a Quiet Riot album should sound like and for that reason, opinion will be divided on whether this new hits the spot or not, but as a standalone classic hard rock album, this works greatly.
I liked it in places and loved it in others and it would be great to see the band build on this release. With the return of Jizzy Pearl and Frankie Banali’s ongoing heath issues, we will wait to see.

I sincerely hope that all of the turmoil surrounding the band doesn’t detract fans from checking this album out because it’s a very strong record that sees the band re-capturing their fire and energy from the ’80s.
Highly Recommended

01 – Don’t Call It Love
02 – In The Blood
03 – Heartbreak City
04 – The Devil That You Know
05 – Change Or Die
06 – Roll On
07 – Insanity
08 – Hellbender
09 – Wild Horses
10 – Holding On
11 – Last Outcast
12 – Arrows & Angels

Frankie Banali – drums
Alex Grossi – guitars
Chuck Wright – bass guitar
James Durbin – vocals

Pre Order:
www.amazon.co.uk/Hollywood-Cowboys-Quiet-Riot/dp/B07TJKC8HP