Warrant - Louder Harder Faster album review

Hair metal survivors, still rocking on gamely

By Paul Elliott
( Classic Rock )
published
Cover art for Warrant Louder - Harder Faster album

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The title speaks volumes. In Warrant’s tenth studio album are echoes of their early, pre-grunge millionsellers – 1989’s Dirty Rotten Filthy Stinking Rich and 1990’s Cherry Pie – but the LA band’s new material is, as advertised, louder, harder, faster.

With four veterans of their glory days still present, alongside former Lynch Mob singer Robert Mason, the band’s line-up remains the same as on their previous album Rockaholic, released in 2011, three months before the death of original frontman Jani Lane. This album’s tone is set with the title track, a flat-out blaster. There’s more heavy fire in Music Man and New Rebellion, the latter reminiscent of vintage Skid Row. And if the big ballad, U In My Life, sounds like Steel Panther minus the gags… well, these dudes were doing this kind of stuff long before it became an ironic joke.

So, a kick-ass record from Warrant in 2017. Few will have seen that coming.

Paul Elliott
Paul Elliott

Freelance writer for Classic Rock since 2005, Paul Elliott has worked for leading music titles since 1985, including Sounds, Kerrang!, MOJO and Q. He is the author of several books including the first biography of Guns N’ Roses and the autobiography of bodyguard-to-the-stars Danny Francis. He has written liner notes for classic album reissues by artists such as Def Leppard, Thin Lizzy and Kiss, and currently works as content editor for Total Guitar. He lives in Bath - of which David Coverdale recently said: “How very Roman of you!”