We will visit some Czech Republic Metal today, kids. Yes they do have a scene there and one of their representatives is the band NASTY RATZ from Prague (what a beautiful city). The band is releasing their third full album named Third Cut and the impression I have from the package, is that the guys are heavily influenced by the California “Hard” Rock from the 80’s and 90’s and the first track “Beat The Bullet” is exactly that. Your mind goes immediately to bands like RATT, KEEL, MOTLEY CRUE and WARRANT to name a few. I did not like the vocals too much on the first track, but it gets much better on the second one “All Night Long” that has a nice vocal melody asking you to dance with them all night long.

It has some VAN HALEN’s Dance The Night Away vibes. The songs are well structured showing the band is composed by well seasoned musicians, however the output is a little too teen oriented to my taste like in the track “Stay Lazy”. It sounds like those songs they use in one of those annoying teenager comedy series. All songs have good guitar riffs and solos provided by guitar player Jordie Riot as you can hear in “Set You Free” despite being still too soft for a “Hard Rock” band. The band gets closer and closer to BON JOVI (God forbid) territory and we reach the inevitable love suffering ballad on “Daddy” that is a weird name for a ballad. However, it is a good one as per ballads goes, and has a nice arrangement and backing vocals. The band has an edgy look and a sleazy name, but this is not reflecting much on their songs. Is lacking a little bit of edge and variation. Just because I wrote this it comes “Faster” that for me is the best of the album so far and is a little different in its energy from the others. With another good guitar work, this track has a more memorable chorus that gets stuck in your year.

The album seems to get a little better as we proceed as you can hear in the also good “Sick & Twisted” that has a nice drum beat from drummer Randy Dee and the singer Sean Hellion plays between an ALICE COOPER singing approach, with a higher pitch voice in the background. Despite singing in tune, I feel that the voice is still missing some extra punch to get out of the average singer category and enters the pantheon of the greats of the genre like SKID ROW’s Sebastian Bach. Another creative riff starts “Wings” and it is another well produced teen Hard Rock with a chorus that you can sing along with your girlfriend/boyfriend that happens to not like rock very much. This one has a cool slower tempo mid section that adds a mood change to the track. Shout out to competent bass player Xriss String that starts another good and different track in “Circus” that took the title of the best of the album from the previous one.

The band shows that they can be creative in their approach to riffs and rhythm. I just wish they boys would take more risks within the genre. The album ends with ‘Demons” that did not impress me much as it is another very bubble gum teen kind of Rock. Overall, I like the work and I believe there is opportunity for improvement. The band should concentrate more on the sleaziness of the genre and distance themselves from the teen rock approach. Think GUNS AND ROSES.