Infestation

Eleven years since their last album, Ratt return with 2010’s Infestation and take hair metal back to the mid-‘80s, even as its members lurk around 50 years old. Close your eyes and it’s the same attack that made 1984’s Out of the Cellar an essential piece of the lite-metal puzzle. Guitarist Robbin Crosby passed in 2002, but singer Stephen Pearcy reunited with Warren DeMartini and Bobby Blotzer and added Quiet Riot’s Carlos Cavazo to the band while writing up tunes that sound like they belong to a band twenty-five years younger. Pearcy’s still a leering, swaggering partyhound with a nose for wild women and DeMartini and Cavazo whip out the twin guitar attack and the vintage solos with the same kick and precision of old. “Eat Me Up Alive” is a metalhead’s anthem. “Look Out Below” features some prime riffage and “Last Call” features the ensemble vocals and deep, cavernous echo that made these guys such a formidable group back in their day.