| Today is a day in which
you'd be hard-pressed to name ten decent, straight forward,
‘balls-to-the-wall’ good old fashioned rock and roll
bands. I can't even think of five. However, within this rock drought,
there has emerged a phoenix out of the ashes by the name of Scott
Weiland, and his band, Velvet Revolver. Their new album, Libertad,
is an oasis of rock in a desert of bad rock music.
The band strikes hard
with the opening number ‘Let It Roll’ and doesn’t
let off until the lovely finale of ‘Gravedigger’ and a
twangy country secret track where the guys let their hair loose and
show their versatility. Matt Sorum and Duff McKagan keep the tracks
groovin’ with their heavy bass lines and bloody knuckled
drumming. It’s always a pleasure to hear Slash shredding with
that signature tone and those signature licks.
The album follows a
nice progression, moving from a fierce opening four songs with the
nice, toned down melodies of ‘The Last Fight’. There are
a few possible radio hits on the album including ‘She Mine’,
‘Let It Roll’, and ‘She Builds a Quick Machine’.
The only possible downside to this album is that it often suffers
from the typical ‘over-compressed’ audio that is
all-to-common in today’s music. Also, Scott Weiland has a great
voice that I don’t think needs many of the effects that
production has chosen to add.
Despite these few
setbacks, Libertad offers up some of the best rock numbers
I’ve heard in a while. Infectious, gritty, and uncompromising
rock. 7.5/10. |
