VELVET REVOLVER

Contraband

RCA
rating icon 6 / 10

Track listing:

01. Sucker Train Blues
02. Do It for the Kids
03. Big Machine
04. Illegal I Song
05. Spectacle
06. Fall to Pieces
07. Headspace
08. Superhuman
09. Set Me Free
10. You Got No Right
11. Slither
12. Dirty Little Thing
13. Loving the Alien


It must have looked great on paper: three musicians from one of the best hard rock bands of the last twenty years joining forces with one of the most electrifying frontmen of the past decade. The talents of former GUNS N' ROSES guitarist Slash, bassist Duff McKagan, and drummer Matt Sorum could hardly be doubted, and have been more or less wasted in the years since the original GN'R fell apart. In the case of STONE TEMPLE PILOTS singer Scott Weiland, his own considerable abilities had to fight for space with his drug busts and trips to rehab, severely hindering that band's forward motion.

So how did these four (plus previously obscure guitarist Dave Kushner) come together to make such an underproduced, underwhelming debut album? "Contraband" promised to be a dangerous, exciting return to balls-out, raw rock 'n' roll, free of trends and genres and bows to mainstream sensibilities. Instead, the album only highlights the alarming possibility that this group of musicians has run out of ideas.

"Do It For The Kids" and "Headspace" sound like warmed-over STP, with Weiland's vocals (which have, sadly, diminished in power over the last few years) rehashing vocal melodies from earlier, better songs. Meanwhile, the GUNS-type songs — and yes, the album is pretty evenly divided between those tunes that sound like GUNS and those that sound like the PILOTS — feature an assembly of riffs that we've heard all too often as well. On the ballads — "Fall To Pieces" and "Loving The Alien"Slash performs, not once, but twice, a variation on the signature lick from "Sweet Child O' Mine", as creatively bankrupt an idea as one can imagine.

Interestingly, it's two of the earliest songs conceived by the band — "Set Me Free" and first single "Slither" — that are the liveliest and catchiest, as if the band had enough juice in their first writing sessions to produce two solid songs before drying up. None of the material is helped by overrated producer Josh Abraham's flaccid work, which often buries vocals and instruments alike in a midrange mush.

The decade's other great supergroup team-up, AUDIOSLAVE, took their respective strengths and largely succeeded at making something new and original out of them. VELVET REVOLVER is the anti-AUDIOSLAVE in many ways, but chief among them is that this new combo has simply not done enough to create something wholly fresh, relying instead on their old moves and past reputations. In the end, however, it all sounds tired. I'm fairly certain that the band puts on a helluva live show, but musically speaking, VELVET REVOLVER needs a reload.

Author:
  • facebook
  • twitter
  • reddit
  • email

Comments Disclaimer And Information

BLABBERMOUTH.NET uses the Facebook Comments plugin to let people comment on content on the site using their Facebook account. The comments reside on Facebook servers and are not stored on BLABBERMOUTH.NET. To comment on a BLABBERMOUTH.NET story or review, you must be logged in to an active personal account on Facebook. Once you're logged in, you will be able to comment. User comments or postings do not reflect the viewpoint of BLABBERMOUTH.NET and BLABBERMOUTH.NET does not endorse, or guarantee the accuracy of, any user comment. To report spam or any abusive, obscene, defamatory, racist, homophobic or threatening comments, or anything that may violate any applicable laws, use the "Report to Facebook" and "Mark as spam" links that appear next to the comments themselves. To do so, click the downward arrow on the top-right corner of the Facebook comment (the arrow is invisible until you roll over it) and select the appropriate action. You can also send an e-mail to blabbermouthinbox(@)gmail.com with pertinent details. BLABBERMOUTH.NET reserves the right to "hide" comments that may be considered offensive, illegal or inappropriate and to "ban" users that violate the site's Terms Of Service. Hidden comments will still appear to the user and to the user's Facebook friends. If a new comment is published from a "banned" user or contains a blacklisted word, this comment will automatically have limited visibility (the "banned" user's comments will only be visible to the user and the user's Facebook friends).