Battle Bratt

Battle Bratt is a tricky album to review. Do I give it a 60% for being a mediocre USPM album? I was going to, until I heard "Henchmann" from Battle Bratt's other (and technically older) album The Anthology. Never before has my opinion changed so fast. That one song has more energy in it than the whole of this album. Yeah, it sounds "older" but it doesn't sound nearly as dated. How so? I can pretty much describe Battle Bratt's self-titled as "worse x".

The vocalist (on this album) is basically a less powerful Geoff Tate. Whinier, even. "Cruisin for Action" is like a worse "Raging Fire" from Running Wild's Port Royal. I'd argue that comparison can actually be expanded for the rest of the album: If Port Royal is the awesomeness of the 80s on a disc, than Battle Bratt is the mediocrity of the 80s on a disc. The former has memorable riffs, blazing solos, and some of the best sing-a-long choruses power metal has ever seen, and the latter has unmemorable guitars and poor attempts at radio hits ("Cruisin for Action" is the worst offender) . Battle Bratt does nothing original, and the stuff it does has already been done better. By the time it was released too, considering this album was released in 1988, the same year as the aforementioned Port Royal and, most damning, Operation Mindcrime.

So in context, it's not great. How does Battle Bratt fare by its own merits? Only marginally better. It isn't offensive to the ears or anything, but that's the problem: it's too careful. It does the bare minimum to not suck. It doesn't grab the listener's attention in either its awfulness or greatness. This also makes the album's core issue all the more painfully obvious: it has nothing of its own. It lacked the unique vocals of a Mike Vescera or the nerve to push the envelope like Ample Destruction.

I know this review is fairly reliant on comparisons to other, better things, but how else could I describe it? In the album's defense though, there are a couple good things I can say: "Heat of the Night" and the rest of the second half of the album really step up their game in the writing department. The actual tones of the instruments sound alright, and the vocals really aren't that bad.

Was there ever a chance for this album to be good? No, I say: "Cruisin for Action" has an error in the guitar playing. It's not like it was during a difficult solo or anything, either. It was just during the playing of the main riff, one that the guitarist was playing competently the rest of the song. If they didn't care there, I doubt they cared much about the rest of the album.

As a result, I can't really recommend this to anyone. USPM veterans have already heard this stuff but better in every way imaginable, and newbies have so many better choices. Battle Bratt played it safe, and it paid the ultimate price: obscurity.