Review Summary: Uneven, but overlooked
As you probably know, if you follow Ratt's music, this is an odds and sods collection of various singles and non-album tracks that were cobbled together for this 1997 release.
The late 90's Ratt albums have a pretty bad reputation, especially this 'Collage'.
It's actually easy to overlook this quality of this album, in my view.
Let's be honest, the production/sound is sub-par. Stephen Pearcy is famous for being a weak vocalist, if not 'infamous', although he does have his gruff charm. He sounds even worse here, without studio dubbing and glitz. He sounds like a middle-aged hack who's been stabbed in the throat, sitting alone in his caravan on a Sunday night, drunkely singing along to songs that are too high for his register. Not all the time, but most.
The sound quality sounds like it was recorded on, oh, I dunno, maybe on Inspector Gadget's watch phone, or Maxmell Smart's shoe-phone. Truly, a real low-budget recording, this one.
But why should that get in the way of decent songwriting? Freed of the obligations of being a 'hair-metal' band, Ratt write some fresh tunes here. Gone are the same-same days of "Dancing Undercover", and Ratt lay down some pretty decent riffs that get away from cookie cutter hard-rock.
"Steel River" is a bit more aggressive sounding than previous tunes, but isn't one of the best ones here. "Dr Rock" is probably the most 'Rattish' song here, but even that has an eerie chord change toward the end.
"Diamond time again" and "Hold Tight" are probably the best songs on the album. They sound a bit like the old sound of Ratt, but without the glam-rock pretentions, and, truly, feature much more original riffs than previously. I would even venture to say that, on "Hold Tight", their playing reaches a level of sophistication they hadn't reached previously.
The other two tracks of note are "Take it anyway" and "Mother Blues". "Blues" is a soulful acoustic ballad that really sets a nice change of pace, and it seems Pearcy is actually dealing with a deeply personal subject matter, while "Take it anyway" is a dumb rock song but, enjoyable, great riff, without studio glitz.
However, there are only really 7 new songs. "Take it all" is a sort-of reworking of "All or nothing" from "Detonator", while "Top Secret (original version)" is a lumbered, overly long version of the song of the same name, and I doubt many Ratt fans were overjoyed with a dub-step remix of "Loving you is a dirty job"
So, while "Collage" isn't a 'classic', the songwriting is more fresh and original and they might make a few new fans if they ever ventured to listen to it, while not boring old fans with the 'same old'. However, the sound and production is quite sub-par, and there is barely enough 'new' material for a full album.
