Born Again

Personnel: Jaime St. James (vocals); Joey Allen (guitar, acoustic guitar, slide guitar); Pat Regan (keyboards); Jerry Dixon (bass guitar); Steven Sweet (drums, cowbells, background vocals).
Audio Mixer: Pat Regan.
Recording information: Sea Sound Studio, Burbank, CA.
Illustrator: Christopher Franchi.
Photographers: Lee Jackson; Neil Zlozower; Christopher Franchi; Erik Turner.
Just as the Born Again title has been employed on dozens of albums by other artists -- including fellow metalheads Black Sabbath -- don't expect Warrant to stretch the boundaries anywhere else on this disc. You can expect them to deliver a superb set of hard rock songs that sound and feel better than most music from the '80s, however. "Dirty Jack" is a perfect candidate for a sequel to anything written by AC/DC. Derivative? Highly -- but these guys are masters of the genre and it is so well done that you can't help but tip your hat to the boys for keeping their metallic integrity pure. Produced by Pat "Scissor Hands" Regan, there are great sounds tucked inside "Hell, CA" and "Roxy," though it would have been prudent to take Steven Sweet's ride cymbal away from him. The pedestrian drums are the CD's only downer -- the sound and the playing are just too mundane, and a bit of phasing and some sampling could've put this over the top. And that's because the dozen originals are all very fine. The opening track, "Devils Juice," with the great line "got the devil inside," rocks out hard with nice chorus vocals that would make Kiss proud. Released five years after Under the Influence -- an album that could be considered this ensemble's The Spaghetti Incident? -- the originals here are all solid and communicate the message and the mission. Boy, if this had been released in 1985 it could've been a monster of monsters. Hindsight being 20/20, Warrant prove decades after the fact that consistency and faith in the original concept isn't a bad thing. The production is so excellent that, combined with the attitude, this will have no problem fitting in at modern rock radio. The problem is perception, and with few programmers willing to risk playing something great in favor of what is considered "now," a nice performance like "Bourbon County Line" will no doubt remain something special only for the already converted. "Down in Diamonds" and "Roller Coaster" deliver the goods, though vocalist Jaime St. James doesn't need to emulate Axl Rose on the latter, as well as on the ballad "Glimmer." ~ Joe Viglione