Album review : NIGHT RANGER – Dawn Patrol and Midnight Madness (Reissues/Remasters)

Rock Candy Records [Release date : 27.10.23]

Two more Night Ranger reissues from the house of remasters.

The band’s secret weapons are evident from the off on Dawn Patrol (1982), the debut album.
In Kelly Keaggy and Jack Blades they had two gifted songwriters and vocalists. Most rock bands were lucky to have one of each.

It’s also clear that they were a highly motivated, energetic young band. Their music displays all the emotional urgency and melodic momentum of great AOR on this remarkably assured debut.

The opening tracks, ‘Don’t Tell Me You Love Me’ and ‘Sing Me Away’ are delivered with such singular certainty that you can’t fail to be impressed. Stripped away from the album, both songs made it into the Billboard Top Forty.

They built on that success with Midnight Madness (1983).
This second album delivered three hit singles that remain the most popular songs in the band’s considerable canon to this day.

‘(You Can Still) Rock In America’ and ‘When You Close Your Eyes’ both accelerated past the 10 million streams mark on Spotify a while back. Nothing compared to ‘Sister Christian’s one hundred million hits and counting.

Listening to the album now, you can very much hear echoes of the Glam Rock sound that dominated popular music in the seventies, eventually evolving into the commercially accessible pop metal of Dawn Patrol and more especially, Midnight Madness.

The achingly sentimental ‘Sister Christian’ established the rock ballad as a winning, chart busting formula. Piano intro, slow build, punchy vocal harmonies, climaxing with a wiry, melodic axe solo. Other bands, like REO Speedwagon, successfully adopted this formula.

(Little known fact: Glenn Hughes provided studio backing vocals on ‘(You Can Still) Rock In America’.)

Producer, Pat Glasser knew his way around a mixing desk. He left such a solid foundation behind in the master tapes that the remastering proved to be a relatively straightforward task for the boffins at Rock Candy. ****

Review by Brian McGowan.

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Power Plays w/c 7 April 2025

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FROM FALL TO SPRING Incomplete (Arising Empire)
POP EVIL Side Effects (MNRK Heavy)
ERJA LYYTINEN Abyss (Tuohi Records)
SKY VALLEY MISTRESS Too Many Ghosts (New Heavy Sounds)

Featured Albums w/c 7 April 2025

09:00-12:00 The Best of 2003 – 2024 (Melodic Rock)
12:00-13:00 The Best of 2003 – 2024 (Melodic Hard Rock)
14:00-16:00 The Best of 2003 – 2024 (Singer Songwriter)

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