Just in time fort he 30-year anniversary the old veterans of QUIET RIOT fire out a compilation with nine vintage live recordings and three rare tracks, which you could see as a small best-of as well as a pretty good first contact with the band. The live songs were recorded on the “Metal Health“ and “Condition Critical“ tours and even though they already are almost ancient (“Metal Health“ was released in 1983 and „Condition Critical“ in 1984) the sound is still clear and powerful, so you can see already here that QUIET RIOT back then had been on the peak of their career and with Epic had a label behind them that was willing to shell out good money for a strong production.

Who doesn’t know songs such as “Condition Critical“, “Cum On Feel The Noize“ or “Metal Health“ and the fans sing along, all of which shows the success that the quartet of DuBrow, Banali, Cavazo and Sarzo enjoyed back then and the quality of these recordings surpasses several of their later studio albums even. The three bonus-tracks are from before “Metal Health“ and show the early stages of QUIET RIOT, the quality here also is pretty good.

The only downpoint here is that between all live songs there is a two second gap of silence, which ruptures the flow of the whole thing, still “Live And Rare” is an interesting document of the early years of QUIET RIOTs that still has power! (Online November 16, 2005)