Dangerdog Music Reviews :: © 1999 - 2025 Craig S Hartranft :: All Rights Reserved
No part of this this website, including design and music reviews,
may be reproduced in any form or by any means without
the prior written permission of the publisher.
CELEBRATING 18 YEARS!
- New Music Reviews
- |
- Archives
- |
- News
- |
- Submissions
- |
- About
- |
- |
New Music Reviews, Hard Rock, Heavy Metal, Progressive Rock, Progressive Metal, AOR, Alternative Rock, Alternative Metal
Recent Reviews
March 2025
- W.E.T.: Apex
- Alliance: Before Our Eyes
- Ginevra: Beyond Tomorrow
- Phil X & The Drills:
Pow! Right In The Kisser - IQ: Dominion
- Heart Line: Falling Heaven
- Gotthard: Stereo Crush
- Defender: Dying To Live
- Streetlight: Night Vision
February 2025
- Robin McAuley: Soulbound
- Perfect Plan: Heart Of A Lion
- Craig Brooks: Desolation Freeway
- Mantric Momentum: Alienized
- Pattern-Seeking Animals: Friend Of All Creatures
- Crazy Lixx: Thrill Of The Bite
- Ginger Evil: The Way It Burns
- Dream Theater: Parasomnia
- Tyran: Tyran's Oath
- Saber: Lost In Flames
January 2025
- Wildness: Avenger
- The Ferrymen: Iron Will
- Labyrinth: In The Vanishing Echoes Of Goodbye
- Bonfire: Higher Ground
- The Big Deal: Electrified
- Landfall: Wide Open Sky
December 2024
- After Lapse: Pathways
- Illusion Force: Halfana
- Powell-Payne: Voilá
November 2024
- Sunstorm: Restless Fight
- Storace: Crossfire
- Voodoo Circle: Hail To The King
- Lionville: Supernatural
- Starchaser: Into The Great Unkown
- Empires Of Eden: Guardians Of Time
- Lonerider: Down In The Dust
- Seventh Crystal: Entity
- Neal Morse & The Resonance: No Hill For A Climber
- Beardfish: Songs For Beating Hearts
- Impellitteri: War Machine
- Brothers Of Metal: Fimbulvinter
Hard Riot: Living On A Fast Lane
Hard Riot: Living On A Fast Lane
(Melodic) Hard Rock
3.5/5.0
Website
Facebook
YouTube
Pitch Black Records
by Craig Hartranft, 03.26.2012
Listening to the opening song, Get Ready, or even the second, Hellfire Rock, it may be easy to dismiss Germany's Hard Riot as another AC/DC clone. But you would be wrong. Their debut LP, Living On A Fast Lane is more melodic heavier rock, without necessarily dismissing the AC/DC influences.
Hard Riot: smiles, smirks, and a mighty fine hat.
I'm not sure what we're to infer from the band name; it's rather strange. What's a 'hard riot'? And the proper English language idiom would be, 'Living In The Fast Lane.' I suppose if you're living on a fast lane, you could get run over. Okay, so they can't get their English right, what about the music?
Excepting Michael Gildner's uneven, sometimes unsteady, vocals, Hard Riot delivers some good, even interesting, melodic hard rock. In other words, I like the music and could pass on Gildner. That's not to say he totally succumbs to mediocrity. He shines on the more mellow Nothing But You. And, if don't you care for clarity, he rocks out everywhere else.
But the music is key: Hard Riot can rock, and that's why the album deserves a better than average score. There's promise here. Best head banging numbers include Don't Need You, No Surrender (very catchy), Take Me Down, and Rock 'n Roll Outlaw. Check out Hard Riot.
Tweet
In Short
Hard Riot could succumb to be another AC/DC clone, but they're more interesting than that. Living On A Fast Lane is better than average heavier melodic rock.
Find A Review
Alphabetical Index
New & Notable
After a brief three year absence from the studio, Swedish rockers Perfect Plan return with their fourth long player, Heart Of A Plan. This arrives after their vocalist, Kent Hilli, has been involved in a few other projects ... [ Read More ]