Like the stereotypical former groupie cougar still trying to jam themselves into the spandex they wore when they were 20(aren't we ALL??? LOL!), classic metal and rock albums from bands like RATT, DOKKEN, DIO, ALICE COOPER, and many more sit on the shelves, ignored and waiting for the extreme makeover to happen to re-capture some of that past glory. Let's face it, CDs that were released back in the 80s that have never been remastered sound like tin can garbage for the most part. A lot of those CDs weren't even transfered from the true master tapes to begin with (Sony still has some dreadful sounding product out there...what’s the holdup with remastering the SPRINGSTEEN catalog fellas???) Slowly but surely, independent labels are snapping up the rights to this stuff and giving them the sonic overhaul they deserve (and some not so deserved). Personally, I've got no need for a 2010 upgrade of anything by say THE SLEEZE BEEZ or HURRICANE ALICE, but I'd sure like to see albums like Tooth & Nail from DOKKEN or Out Of The Cellar from RATT get a serious cobweb cleaning. In the meantime, we do get the occasional unexpected re-release and so we now have a 2010 remaster of KEEL's sophomore release The Right To Rock, originally released in 1985 and produced by Gene Simmons(some guy who has a reality show...and oh yeah, he's in that band that wears make-up).

Lead by vocalist Ron Keel, KEEL was a no-nonsense hard rock band with metal overtones much in the vein of bands like HELIX, early TWISTED SISTER, QUIET RIOT, RATT, etc. Not overly glammy sounding, but they had hooks, cheesy song titles, big hair, but a bit more grit and balls than your average WHITE LION. They were straight-forward anthemic rock without all of the pseudo-funk groove riffing of the hair bands that came later on. After laying the groundwork with Lay Down The Law, the 1984 debut, KEEL snagged Gene Simmons to produce this follow-up, and it has his stamp all over it. In fact, if you listen to any of KISS' mid-80s releases like Animalize or Asylum, the similarities in style are striking....a song like "Get Down" could have easily been on one of those KISS albums. It's not a surprise since Simmons co-wrote some of the material on this. Thankfully, Frontiers decided to re-master this album and not the follow-up The Final Frontier, which while not bad, started to get more produced and lost a bit of the edge.

I remember seeing the video for the title track off this album constantly on USA Network's Night Flight, which used to show the cool videos that MTV didn't put in heavy rotation and this was also pre-Headbanger's Ball, so you really didn't get to see videos like this very often if they weren't already a huge band. I picked up the cassette of this album based on the video, and it fit nicely in my growing collection of metal/rock of the times. There's something genuine to me about early 80s rock like this that was yet to be tainted by the over-production, cookie-cutter songwriting, and bandwagon jumping that came later in the decade. The Right To Rock fits in this category, appearing before everything started to get a bit watered down. The guitars are ballsy and dirty, the choruses are catchy without being too cheesy, the production just slick enough without drowning in 80s reverb. The album is filled with anthemic hard rockers, twin guitar assaults like the THIN LIZZY-esque riffing of "Back To The City", and the obligatory double bass barrage of "You're The Victim(I'm The Crime)". There's also a decent cover of THE ROLLING STONES' "Let's Spend The Night Together".

Overall, as far as 80s hard rock goes, this is one of the stronger albums of that genre, and if you haven't heard it in 25 years(Wow! I feel old as shit right now) or never got around to picking it up back then, I would recommend picking up this re-mastered version. I never owned the original CD pressing, and my cassette has long been in the scrap heap of tapes that bit the dust, so I have nothing to compare the sound quality of this release to, but it sounds great, keeping in mind the limitations of recording technology in 1985. And as an added bonus, there is a re-mix of "Easier Said Than Done" and a completely re-recorded 2010 version of "The Right To Rock", which is a curiosity more than anything else, but still cool to hear. The Right To Rock belongs alongside classic early 80s rock like W.A.S.P.'s debut album, Too Fast For Love and Shout At The Devil from the CRUE, Holy Diver and Last In Line from DIO, and High & Dry from DEF LEPPARD as a good representation of what solid hard rock/metal sounded like before MTV changed everything.