I will give props to Michael Bolton for actually re-recording the songs with a symphony orchestra and not just phoning it in, but I don’t see the need for basically another greatest hits package of songs from 30 years ago that feels tired and boring and left me missing the days of this Michael Bolton…
#OneSentenceReview
Thanks to SuperDekes for the idea…go check out his #OneSentenceReview of Canadian Rockers Max Webster: Live Magnetic Air (1979).
Rival Sons are now on their sixth studio album and we are just shy of 10 years since the debut album and I hate to admit that I had only been a casual fan throughout. That has since changed with the release of ‘Feral Roots’. There is no need to be casual as a deep dive is needed to explore all the textures they have delivered over the years.
Why the change of heart? Well, easily it is this album. But before we get into the good of this album, we have to explore the bad. What is bad about this album? Well, not a damn thing!
From the opening fuzzy guitar riffs of “Do Your Worst”, Rival Sons come out swinging with a pure rock & roll album. It is bluesy, it is heavy, it is retro, it is fan’freaking’tastic. This is what Rock & Roll music should sound like.
What is the best part of this album? Well, it is the drumming of Mike Miley. Not since Kiss’ Creatures of the Night album have the drums sounded so great and been such an integral part of the sound of an album. His NRA approved, machine gun barrage of drumming to open “Back in the Woods” had me screaming as I was driving down the road at 6am in the morning heading to work.
Continue reading “Rival Sons – ‘Feral Roots’ – Album Review”
I had a little Christmas money and I found the Guns N’ Roses album ‘Appetite for Destruction: Super Deluxe Edition’ on sale of $89.99 which is down from the $124.99 on Amazon so I decided to bite the bullet on this 4 CD set. Now, I didn’t have enough to the that $800+ Locked & Loaded Box Set so I had to pass on that one.
Now, lucky for you I will review this set and go through what it has to offer. With 73 tracks and 49 Unreleased tracks, I am not going to go through each song in detail as we would be here for days reading and I would be dead from writing all those words. You will get a “Cliff Notes” version of the review. I hope that is okay. The set has a lot to offer. Here is snap shot of what all comes with the set…(I used this picture from the web as I couldn’t get a decent picture – thanks Amazon).
The first thing that grabbed my attention was the beautiful book. It is a 96-page Hardcover Book with Unreleased Photos and tons of pictures of posters and band memorabilia. The book cover is all black and genuine fake leather embossed with the GN’R logo. It is tough to see that logo, but it is there…
Continue reading “Guns N’ Roses – ‘Appetite For Destruction: Super Deluxe Edition’ – Album Review”
Before I get into the review, I want to note that I did not pay for this CD, it was sent to me. However, it wasn’t sent by the band or even any PR team, but by the Mighty Mike Ladano as a gift because he thought I would like it (very cool of him…thanks Mike!). He knows the band though so I guess he is their PR guy. I hope he is getting paid. Anyway, the review set forth is my honest take on the album.
Max the Axe is a Canadian band out of Kitchener, Ontario (yeah, I don’t know where that is either). The songs are filled with some gritty, distorted guitars and the lyrics at times have a slight comedic flare which makes me think that this band is the bastard child of Black Sabbath and Barenaked Ladies.
The Band:
When the band shined was when they were completely in beast mode with the songs “River Grand” and “Scales of Justice”. The guitar work was outstanding with the distortion and the drum fills were great. “Scales of Justice” was an epic song at over 6 minutes and some of the best riffs. What might be my favorite song off the album is “Sick of Living”. The band slays it in what I thought sounded like a mix of Sabbath and Priest. The guitar solo was one of the best on the album and that scream was so rock & roll.
Continue reading “Max the Axe – ‘Status Electric’ – Album Review”
Norwegian rocker, Jorn Lande, turned 50 this year and to celebrate that fact, Frontiers Records released a collection of 9 of his studio albums and three bonus discs. That is 12 disc in all for a very reasonable price of about $60 ($5 per CD). I will take that deal any day!
Jorn’s voice is so powerful and he could hold is own with some of the more well known vocalist out there. When he sings, he does sound almost exactly like David Coverdale of Whitesnake. And when he covers any Whitesnake song, the resemblance is uncanny. That is probably why I like him so much as I am huge Whitesnake fan.
Frontiers does a great job with the set. The box is real sturdy and should hold up well for years. Each CD is packaged in a cardboard sleeve that looks like the original CD and includes the original CD booklet as well. Sometimes sets have left that piece out. The CD itself looks like a small vinyl replica which seems to be a trend for some box sets (The Kip Winger Set did that as well). It is a nicely packaged set.
Continue reading “Jorn – 50 Years on Earth: The Anniversary Box Set – Album Review”
Before I get to the next studio album in the Billy Idol series, I thought I would throw in a bonus Generation X Bootleg album out of Italy. This 2LP Set is called the BBC Transcription Disc Series No. 126 – 1978. It is live show from December 8th, 1978 out of Sheffield, England. It is an unofficial release so therefore, a bootleg. And it is fantastic.
I was in New York at this great little record store in Greenwich Village and came across this disc. I was talking with the clerk asking about any Generation X on vinyl and he told me I needed this one and man he was right.
Generation X was criticized on their studio albums for trying to be more commercial than Punk. Well, the live album shows they were a real Punk band. I find this live show to really show off what this band was all about. You can hear the attitude in the guitar playing and the drumming. And of course, Billy’s snarling and attitude is pure punk with a big FU to everyone.
John Corabi, lead singer of the band The Dead Daisies and at one time for a brief moment, he was the lead singer for Motley Crue. He was on only one studio album and that was the 1994 self-titled album, Motley Crue. When Vince was no longer in the band, the band reached out to John and bam, we got one of Motley’s most underrated albums. It was a different Motley Crue. A little more bluesy, a little more serious and a little more awesome.
However, ever since Vince rejoined the band, that 1994 album has basically been ignored. When Motley Crue released their vinyl box set called “The End”, they omitted this album along with ‘Generation Swine’. I was a little pissed. I wanted all their albums on vinyl.
John Corabi decided to perform this 1994 Motley Crue album live for One Night only in Nashville, Tennessee (but toured it more than just Nashville). Thankfully, he released it back in early 2018; however, I never found it on vinyl.
Imagine my surprise when I saw an ad for it on Facebook that mentioned he was releasing it as a very limited edition vinyl 2LP set and Bam!!! I jumped on it. Hell, if Motley Crue wasn’t going to release it on vinyl, then this is certainly the next best thing…if not better!! Now I swore it said it would be out in February, but it arrived on my doorstep just before Christmas. That was a nice surprise.
First off, how limited an edition is it? Well, it is only limited to 300 copies in a Red Splatter vinyl. What # did I get? I will show you…
Continue reading “John Corabi – Live ’94 (One Night In Nashville) – Album Review”
Def Leppard have been milking the Hysteria album for years and why not as it is their most popular album. It was an album that would reach Diamond status with well over 10 million copies sold. It would produce 7 singles in the US and even 6 in it’s home country of the UK.
In celebration of the albums 30 years, they released a beautiful box set of the full album which I reviewed a long while back (Hysteria). Now, they have decided to release the Singles Box set to celebrate those 7 singles and for fun they released two more singles plus gave us an extra Spanish Version of one of their singles (Spanish cover, not sung in Spanish although that would’ve been cool). This gives us a nice set of 10 singles plus their B-Sides.
There were two things that made the Hysteria Singles so special. One was the cover of those singles were a puzzle piece that when put together, they created the album artwork. The second thing was that the B-Sides were all unreleased tracks. As a collector, they were awesome.
Continue reading “Def Leppard – Hysteria: The Singles Box Set – Album Review”
After touring the band’s second album, ‘Valley of the Dolls’, the band was in shambles. During the recording of their third album, Derwood Andrews decided to leave the band. And shortly thereafter, Billy asked drummer, Mark Laff, to leave…well, he fired him as he didn’t feel his style was appropriate for the new sound. Generation X was done. That third album would not be released for another 20 years.
Remaining players, Billy Idol and Tony James, decided to keep going, but now they were called Gen X. First the band needed a new manager, Tony found a guy by the name of Bill Aucoin. If you are a Kiss fan, that name should ring some bells pretty loudly. The band then got drummer Terry Chimes and they auditioned several guitarists while recording the new album.
The band’s style was no longer punk. They were going to ride the New Wave sound that was starting to sweep across England. That sound would be what carried Billy into his solo career. Speaking of solo career, Bill Aucoin wasn’t overly impressed with Gen X. His real interest was Billy Idol and what he could with him in America, but that would come just a little later down the line.
Continue reading “Gen X – ‘Kiss Me Deadly’ – Album Review (The Billy Idol Series)”
For Record Store Day on Black Friday of 2018, I was able to pick up the new Stone Temple Pilots Live album simply called Live 2018. I have been a fan of STP for years and was happy to hear they were getting a new singer and were going to continue despite the death of former lead singer, the great Scott Weiland. The new singer, Jeff Gutt seemed like a good choice and their new album earlier this year wasn’t bad…wasn’t great either, but wasn’t bad (see review here).
When I heard they were doing a Live album for Record Store Day, I was excited and it was one I wanted to get to see how Jeff does live.. The track listing was only 10 songs, but they are a great 11 songs with 2 from the new album and the rest being STP classics. The album cover was cool as it was rendered in 3-D and the album came with 3-D glassed
And the back cover of course was in 3-D as well which is why it is a little blurry.
Continue reading “Stone Temple Pilots – Live 2018 – Album Review”
2 Loud 2 Old Music 