Review Summary: A silent earthquake
During the years of punk rock's explosion, a hard rock band saw the light. After a couple of years, they discarded their first messy ideas and then released their debut studio album... and little they knew about its importance. It's 1977, and Riot start their long, turbulent, career with Rock City: a direct bridge between hard rock and heavy metal. An important bridge for the development of heavy music in America that later reached Europe right before the advent of NWOBHM.
Rock City shows a large variety of content. It ranges from the simpler rocking numbers like the opener "Desperation" to harder hitters like the titletrack, or faster paced songs like "Warrior". The two closing tracks, "Gypsy Queen" and "This Is What I Get", show a glam rock and AOR attitude reminiscent of bands like Boston (which just spawned the debut album the year before), but is perhaps the before mentioned "Warrior" the most interesting piece of Rock City. With a fast rhythm, a melodic sound, multiple guitar solos, big choruses, and fantasy themed lyrics, "Warrior" is an early stage of what we could refer as power metal. Anyway, the melodic sound is clearly not present in "Warrior" only. Songs like "Overdrive", "Tokio Rose", and "Heart of Fire" please the listener with catchy melodies, catchy choruses and punchy guitar work.
That said, Rock City is nowhere near perfect. Every member delivers a good performance, especially concerning guitar work and vocal delivery. The guys sound like they're really having fun, and it's ok, but not every listener will be pleased with it, because Rock City is as serious as an AC/DC record. Despite sounding solid and providing decent replayability, during the short running time (33 minutes!) what is lacking is the presence of a truly memorable moment. Basically, if you can't stand happy and carefree music you might not find a single track worth listening to more than one or two times.
However, It is surprising how fresh Rock City sounds today. The drums sound compact and powerful, the bass is clearly audible (even though it gets harder to hear it during some strophes) and has some nice shining moments ("Angel"), and both guitars sound polished and distinct. It is in fact a pleasure to listen to the two guitarists' arrangements, they sound so solid and cohesive that it's easy to forget the fact that Rock City is the band's debut studio effort. Completing the platter, Speranza (may he rest in peace) really is the perfect singer for this sounds: he not only is a good singer ("Gypsy Queen"), but he also is definitely the voice you would expect to hear in a project called Rock City, and he can be described as a rougher Bon Scott (it's not hard to define some of Riot's influences, anyway).
Rock City passed quietly under the radars of the critics, but at the same time influenced dozens of American bands. Soon, Europe understood the importance of the record. It is in fact thanks to the big import carried out by Britain that Greene Street Recording's owner Steve Loeb hurried to take the band back in the studio to finish the recordings for their second studio release: Narita.
