Review: IAN GILLIAN – One Eye to Morocco

Far be it from this writer to suggest what a living rock legend should or shouldn’t do with his career. After all, when you’ve fronted Deep Purple and Black Sabbath, not to mention played the lyrical role of Jesus Christ, you really don’t have to answer to anyone. Still, what is this enigma known as One Eye to Morocco?

For Ian Gillan’s purposes, the malleable vocalist brings his own distinct timbre much less a well-known array of chops to whatever he wants to do, be it to belt out “Space Truckin’” for the billionth time or to pull off “Mr. Universe” from his eighties unit Gillan.

Bringing forth his first solo venture in a decade, Ian Gillan went on a veritable tear of songwriting in his downtime outside of Deep Purple, which went on momentary hiatus early last year when Roger Glover paused to mourn his passed mother. The time elapsed during this short recess was amazingly enough time for Ian Gillan to kick back and write an onslaught of 30-some songs.

Devoid of the superfluous guitar andkeyboard solos Gillan has customarily surrounded himself with, his newest album One Eye to Morocco (reportedly based on a Polish proverb) isn’t so much a pure rock album as it is world music planted inside of a knee-swishing, breezy light rock record.

Recorded in a meager three days, One Eye to Morocco is certainly as polished an album as spawned by those artists working relentlessly for weeks. Through One Eye to Morocco, Gillan offers his listeners a glimpse inside of his mind which accommodates (as Sting has historically done in a solo capacity) for the usage of earthy percussion, saxophone and adult contemporary modes into an album that will require a lot of patience.

Sure, you’ll get a chance to rock out with Gillan on the pumped-up “No Lotion for That” and the blues rawky “Texas State of Mind.” Beware, however, because One Eye to Morocco isn’t about keeping your neck bobbing and screaming “My Woman from Tokyo” at lung’s capacity.

What you’re going to get from this record is caliente conga grooves on “Don’t Stop,” a shuck ‘n jive percussive number in spirit to Duran Duran and eighties Stones with “Change My Ways” and calypso outpourings on the slinky “Deal With It.” As usual with Ian Gillan, expect some blues dabbling on one of the album’s cooler cuts, “Better Days” and the midtempo shuffle guiding “Ultimate Groove.”

Keeping in his stable from projects past Michael Lee Jackson (also associated with Animal Planet and Greg Lake of Emerson, Lake and Palmer), and an entire ensemble of players, Ian Gillan should be commended for making an album this rich in tone and this natural in so quick a time. On the other hand, One Eye to Morocco is so anti-rock as much as it operates within a rock framework it’s hard to digest the first couple spins.

If you’re open-minded to what Gillan has teeming within his apparentlyhassle-free body and mind, One Eye to Morocco is a befuddling though reasonably entertaining project. If this doesn’t apply to you, you’re well-advised to turn tail and yank Fireball or Machine Head off of your shelf.

IAN GILLIAN
One Eye to Morocco
Label: Eagle Records

Article by Ray Van Horn, Jr.

Review: QUEENSRYCHE – American Soldier

QUEENSRYCHE

American Soldier

Suffice it to say, Empire forever altered the course of the mighty Queensryche. While “Silent Lucidity” became an unexpected AOR juggernaut and “Jet City Woman” happened into a favorable positionamongst FM junkies, the title song has more or less become, tempo-wise, a foundation for Queensryche’s later works.

Though fan reaction to Queensyrche’s 2006 sequel to their greatest achievement, Operation Mindcrime II was a mixed bag, life in the ‘Ryche’s now frontier beginning with the tenebrousPromised Land of 1994 has generally been one melancholic journey after another. Thus Geoff Tate’s ambrosial vocals have historically served his band appropriately, particularly as they’ve quietly sought identity following their commercial ascension and decline since the original Mindcrime and Empire.

Tate and Queensryche’s taste for a temporal and sometimes despondent brand of metal on such albums as Q2K, Tribe and Operation Mindcrime II are almost necessary precursors to what transpires this year as Queensryche and the United States enters a political climate shift with the Iraqi conflict finally beginning to simmer down. Said downcast measures lingering within the proverbial “thinking man’s” metal band are essentially prerequisite coming into their latest studio album American Soldier.

Similar to Winger’s IV and more so Filter’s Anthems of the Damned, Queensryche honors the troops laying down their lives overseas rock-style, only in the case of American Soldier, the album was birthed from a series of actual interviews conducted between Geoff Tate and the troops in Iraq. Relayed in soundbytes through the predominantly sorrowful vibe of American Soldier,tangible military voices lend their distant testimony behind anexceptionally emotive Geoff Tate who gallantly breathes life into his war-tagged muse.

The timing of American Soldier is perfect now that presidential roles have been swapped and the country is more concerned with its own recession-strapped welfare than a controversial war torched by many rock groups including Queensryche themselves during the onstage presentation of both Mindcrime albums. All backlash cast towards the junior Bush now takes a rest in deference to the scarred words and experiences of those spilling their blood on the front lines.

Scott Rockenfield lays down a repetitive thread of concussive beat patterns as American Soldier marches nearly without deviation and in occasional somnolence. This is naturally intentional in order to convey the dead soul nature of war. American Soldier is purposely ugly much of the way as Queensryche hoists a lamenting torch on songs such as “A Dead Man’s Words,” “Sliver,” “Man Down!” and “Middle of Hell.”

While American Soldier does serve to inspire as much as cast a depressing light on the horrors of war, the mostly-languid, withering tempo of the album does carry high above its emotionally-decimated muse (who loses friends and comrades at will throughout the album) on songs such as “If I Were King” and “Home Again.”

Geoff Tate turns in a memorable performance (he dumps you right there in the cockpit on “At 30,000 Ft,” for instance) obviously affected by his meetings with actual soldiers. Although American Soldier hardly breaks its slow, sometimes menacing stride, Tate’s graceful pipes along with the sensitive guitar lines of Michael Wilton and guests Kelly Gray and Damon Johnson (as well as Emily Tate’s cryptic response vocals on “Home Again”) leave a dauntless—if not weepy—ambience to anexceptionally daring record.

Perhaps Queensryche remembered just as many Republicans have historically been into their music as well as Democrats and independents, because American Soldier is a thematic about-face and it caters to each sanction equally. Impartial only to the degree Tate doesn’t throw further darts at the former Commander-in-Chief, American Soldier is a frequently elegant bitter pill with purple hearts pinned to every mournful note.

Heavier in sound and in lyrical content than anything they’ve done since Promised Land, Queensryche has created a provocative, if doom-ushered album of textured refinement for a soon-to-be-post-war society that will be haunted by the past eight years in the upcoming months. American Soldier hails the sacrifices made since 9/11 but it also subliminally condemns the motives forcing said forfeitures of life.

QUEENSRYCHE
American Soldier
Label: Rhino Entertainment
Article by Ray Van Horn, Jr.

BILLY SHEEHAN – Holy Cow!

Billy Sheehan, Holy Cow! on Mascot Records
by Ray Van Horn, Jr.

Now this is one motivated rock record! You have to think after the celestial aeronautics of Billy Sheehan’s 2005 solo album Cosmic Troubadour he worked a little something out of his system. That or he soon after reignited a passion for straightforward rock ‘n roll ala his Mr. Big, David Lee Roth and Talas days because Mr. Happy Fingers himself is absolutely on fire with his current solo project Holy Cow!

As Sheehan is dabbling in prog and funk in his side entity with Tony MacAlpine, Devil’s Slingshot, consider Holy Cow! Sheehan’s kid-at-heart playground just by the steadfast, goodtime feeling on “Dynamic Exhilarator” where he and famed guitarist Paul Gilbert go berserk in each other’s company with Army of Anyone drummer Ray Luzier pounding happily at their sides. “Dynamic Exhilarator” trucks on the heels of its preceding jam, the equally peppy“A Little Bit’l Do It To Ya Ev’ry Time,” the latter of which features leads from ZZ Top’s Billy Gibbons.

Even with the midtempo lead track “In a Week Or Two (I’ll Give it Back to You)” and the steady gallop of “A Bloodless Casualty,” Billy Sheehan expounds his talents beyond searing bass licks by writing sharp-hooked rock numbers glossed with steady lead vocals, layered guitars and even some slicked-out harmonica on Holy Cow!. It’s hard not to get excited along with Sheehan on this album with the uptempo jive ‘n rock shuffling on “Just Another Humanoid” or the cheekily-titled punchy tunes “Two People Can Keep a Secret (If One of Them is Dead)” and “She Goes From Cruel to Missionary.” Returning to Sheehan’s private endeavors is Simone Sello(who previously appeared on Sheehan’s 2001 Compression album) on “Two People Can Keep a Secret (If One of Them is Dead).”

Scaling things back to a soulful twitch on “Turning Point,” Sheehan recruits one of hard rock’s most soothing voices, dUg Pinnick of King’s X, who gives the tune loft and essence. When you think about it, the more you listen to Sheehan’s own vocals on this album, they assume their own pinpointed Pinnick vibe, adding extraneous character to his songs you might not’ve expected coming to the table.

Of course, Billy Sheehan holds instrumental clinics with the aforementioned “Dynamic Exhilarator,” his dazzling “Theme From an Imaginary Sci-Fi” (nowhere even close in spirit to Mountain, but a funky enterprise nonetheless), “Sweat On An E String” and the dreamy sway guiding “Swimming Under Water” to the album’s finish line.

You’ve got to hand it to Billy Sheehan. The days of big arena rock are long gone, but not the artisans who were lords of the stage in their time. Simply stated, you can’t tell Billy Sheehan not to make an album as good as this. Were Holy Cow! released around the time of David Lee Roth’s Skyscraper, Sheehan could’ve possibly done his one-time employer in at that point. Holy cow, indeed!

Billy Sheehan
Holy Cow!
Mascot Records
Review by Ray Van Horn, Jr.

REVIEW: Saxon – Into the Labyrinth

Of all the old school metal bands to remain on a hot streak in the new millennium, it’s Saxon. For the third consecutive album beginning with 2004’s Lionheart, Biff Byford and Paul Quinn keep the sails whipping through the Union Jack in a stoic effort from one of the acknowledged masters of the New Wave of British Heavy Metal.

Though some have been arguing that having only Byford and Quinn from the original lineup (though drummer Nigel Glockler has been hanging about the Saxon camp for many years) doesn’t constitute a proper Saxon, you can’t argue with the results of what is. Lionheart, The Inner Sanctum and now Into the Labyrinth have been consistently heavy, consistently on the dime and consistently entertaining as hell.

Into the Labyrinth may be the most enjoyable of them all because Saxon, as they did on the previous two efforts—in particular Lionheart—seems hell-bent to erase the memory of the band’s squelched late-eighties pop rock albums Rock the Nations and Destiny. Honestly, guys, you’re forgiven, already, sheesh! If you’re going to give us a soaring power blast out the gate with the gallant “Battalions of Steel,” some trad anthem rawk with “Live to Rock” and then a near-thrashy ode to the recently-popularized barber from hell, “Demon Sweeney Todd,” then consider Nations and Destiny water under the bridge…

What’s particularly inspiring about Into the Labyrinth is the obvious fun Saxon is having together. Does it have to be Denim and Leather, Wheels of Steel or Crusader? Let’s hope not, lest those albums lose the specialness of their time and forevermore. Let’s simply be thankful Into the Labyrinth takes itself seriously enough to honor Saxon and heavy metal’s past on the majestic “Valley of the Kings” and “Voice” while stepping into the newer timeframe on the more contemporary “Protect Yourselves.” For the honor of the old ways, Saxon steps up with the brisk-tempo “Hellcat” and then turns towards some Leadbelly-esque swamprat blues on an acoustic resurrection of “Coming Home,” which originally appeared in electric form on 2001’s Killing Ground.

Paul Quinn sounds as interested in his business as ever, while Doug Scarratt and Nibbs Carter provide ample assistance to Saxon’s densely-realized rhythm section. Would Saxon be as heavy as this without them? Maybe or maybe not, but you know what they say about having newer blood in the fold from time-to-time. As for Biff Byford, you just have to admire his testicular fortitude; 1983 or 2008, the man lights his mike on fire, period.

The result for a band reaching its 31st year as of Into the Labyrinth is a rock solid addition to the legacy of one of the entire metal world’s greatest units. Re-sew those vintage back patches to the faded denim and wrap those arthritic wrists in sparkling studs to show the fashionably trendy youth of today how to wear them properly. Up the Saxon and be proud of your damned selves…

SAXON
Into the Labyrinth
Label: SPV/Steamhammer
Review by Ray Van Horn, Jr.

REVIEW: tRnzPrNt – “Iced”

A couple years ago I had the unique privilege of chatting with the late Ricky Parent, best known for his powerful drumming with Enuff Z’nuff, but also his work with Vince Neil, Alice Cooper, War and Peace, Paul Gilbert and Tod Howarth from Frehley’s Comet. At the time, Parent was well into his battle against cancer and what I’ll always take from those 15 or so minutes we spent on the phone together was his adamant courage to push through the conversation. Despite my offer to postpone our interview, Parent gave me a little background about his early days as a rocker and how he joined the grossly-underappreciated Enuff Z’nuffonce Vikki Fox departed.

Ricky Parent came along during the nineties after Enuff Z’nuff had already hit a brief ascension of notoriety then instantly capsized down an incline that refused to rise for them once again—blame the press of the day, which refused to look past the Poison-esque glam facades they introduced themselves with. Undoubtedly the band was completely in a zone with Parent hammering the skins, and their neo-hippie pop rock was equally effervescent on 2002’s Welcome to Blue Island as it was in 1991 with the criminally-overlooked Strength, much less late-nineties output only the devout managed to chase down such as Paraphernalia and 10. Shame of it all was that Enuff Z’nuff was at their most confident on Welcome to Blue Island with Parent in the camp than perhaps they’d ever been. Certainly you can’t argue his presence was unifying glue towards bringing Donnie Vie and Chip Z’nuff back into a harmonious co-existence.

Unfortunately following Enuff Z’nuff’s 2004 sugary rock fest ?, they lost not only original guitarist Derek Frigo, who’d come home to play again, but sadly, Ricky Parent thereafter. One might say this band has faced and stood up to a curse that does its damnedest to destroy them.

As for Parent, he managed to make his remaining days in this life count, not by surrendering to the sickness that whittled him away (and believe me, I heard the fatigue in the man loud and clear on the phone), but getting together with some veteran rock buddies for a foot-tapping farewell as tRnzPrNt, a name generated by his online ID. Surrounded by guitarist Jimi Ambrose and G-Man Poster, bassist Casper Raines and frontman Jim Villani, Ricky Parent’s final output is nothing short of a triumph.

Sure, there’s the obvious effect that Parent got on the stool under duress and pounds his kit with the same precise force and happiness as he did for Enuff Z’nuff and his other studio work. The facthis group’s album Iced! is so danged good and full of such graceful energy is the true testament to Parent’s legacy.

There’s an Enuff Z’nuff ruboff in tRnzPrNt but only to a point when you hear songs such as “Drink to the Bottom,” “Teenage Overdose” and the happy-go-lucky opening track “Carrie Please,” the latter of which kicks Iced! off with such rocking glee you’re hooked on the spot. From there, Iced!seizes the moment on the Kiss-flavored “I Can’t Take It” and the brisk and breezy “Living for the Night.”

There’s a cool mix of Kiss and The Beatles knocking heads on “Little Girl” and there’s a private sweetness fortifying the lap-patting groove of “Something About You.” The band gets a little funky on “I Wuz Robbed” and steps on the gas a hair with “Foolin’ Around.” Meanwhile, tRnzPrNt’s heaviest cut, “Comfortable Foe” chugs with snarling riffs and some Ozzy-laced vocals from Jim Villani. Villani, however,largely commands his mike on Iced! with a unique pitch that accommodates his buried nasal tones.

What’s especially nice about Iced! is there are virtually no maudlin overtones to this thing. In fact, the jokey dialogue intro to “Talk Too Much” is, according to inside information, a potshot at American vocalists (largely from the alt rock scene) trying to pass themselves off as tragically hip British. Fun and mirth all the way to the finish line, tRnzPrNt is exactly the way we would want to remember Ricky Parent, pumping his band with hard, life-embracing strikes, which they take cue from gallantly.

God bless you, Ricky…

tRnzPrNt
Iced!
Ambran, Inc.
review by Ray Van Horn, Jr.

REVIEW: Don Airey – Light in the Sky

There was a time in the mid-eighties as Generation X hijacked the scene where keyboards in hard rock and metal were considered taboo. Never mind every one of the great rockers such as Zeppelin, Sabbath, Purple and Rainbow blared their organs and synths with the same razzle-dazzle as their classical and blues-bred lead guitars and superfluous drum solos. When you stop and think how much more powerful progressive rock groups such as Yes, Nektar, Emerson, Lake and Palmer and Jethro Tull sounded with keyboard accompaniment, it’s almost hard to see what the anti-key hubbub was about in eighties’ heavy metal.

Then again, masters of the keys from Jon Lord to Jens Johansson are in a far different class than some of the high-pitchedooze emissionscommercializing heavy music from once loud ‘n proud rockers such as Def Leppard and TNT. The latter band’s Tell No Tales particularly pours the synth syrup gratuitously, while another example, Fastway’s Waiting for the Roar,is perhaps the biggest keyboard rock wankfest of the day.

Don Airey, on the other hand, is perched with a different echelon of keyboard jocks. Having played with everyone from Deep Purple to Jethro Tull to Ozzy to Sabbath, Priest, Whitesnake, UFO, Uli Jon Roth, Rainbow and Gary Moore, Don Airey realizes that if you’re going to supplement hard rock with organs and keys, then you need to rock that stuff, brother. This is precisely what the finger-happy maestro does with A Light in the Sky, one of the most entertaining keyboard-driven albums put down in the modern era.

Mixing everything from hard rock to fusion to classical, Don Airey literally goes space truckin’ on A Light in the Sky with a largely-inspired set of groundless tunes varying in mood and momentum.

At times, Airey is like Bach on a speed kick with fugue-turned-rock-a-rama instrumentals such as “Space Troll Patrol.” Sometimes the pace of the songs themselves take over like Deep Purple grooves thrown into an uncut gear, such as the brisk-tempoed “Endless Night.” Going into traditional Purple rawk modes on the stamping “Shooting Star,” Don Airey has only begun to take his listeners to way-out astral planes on this album.

Airey playfully tosses out a one-minute organ blues jam with “Rocket to the Moon,” but the dominant trait to A Light in the Sky is its articulate textures and explosive prog bursts turned in elevated succession. “Ripples in the Fabric of Time” works its way methodically through a soothing rock pulse before going berserk in the second half of the instrumental with madcap organ, guitar and violin solos. “A Light in the Sky Part 2” reigns as an extensive seven-minute rock odyssey complete with vocals from Carl Sentance, who uncannily sounds a bit like Ian Gillian and Glenn Hughes. In many sections, Don Airey heaps winding organ loops atop his throbbing rock furrow ala Fragile-era Yes. Detailed beyond comprehension, “A Light in the Sky Part 2” is a new-gen prog bonanza as interpreted by a veteran keystroker who was there to assimilate it all when it was originally created.

What’s particularly special about Airey’s project is he’s unafraid to scale the note-lunacy down to a focused and textured rock ballad with “Love You Too Much.” He also changes his entire scheme by switching to chamber piano on the strict and eloquent “Into Orbit,” which features gorgeous violin accompaniment courtesy of Lidia Baich. Beforehand, Airey puts on a clinic by merging rock and cabaret with the breathtaking “Somarero M104.”

As A Light in the Sky rounds on a majestic New York Minute escape “Lost in the End of Time,” what has been revealed is a supreme composer encased in the guise of a rocker. Brilliant on many turns, Don Airey has proven, as he has recently on Judas Priest’s Nostradamus that a mindset filled with Holst, Bach, ELP and Rainbowcan equate into one hell of a headbangers’ concerto.

Don Airey
A Light in the Sky
Mascot Records
review by Ray Van Horn, Jr.

REVIEW: We Wish You a Metal Christmas and a Headbanging New Year

In what is developing into an annual tradition with last year’s Monster Ballads Xmas and A Twisted Christmas the year prior, the heavy metal parade this year lines up somewhere between the North Pole and the hallowed nativity with the marching feet barely out of the pentagram circle for We Wish You a Metal Christmas and a Headbanging New Year.

If there’s any difference between We Wish You a Metal Christmas and a Headbanging New Year and say, Monster Ballads Xmas (blunt heaviness of the former aside), it’s the fact this stable of metalhead carolers bears a mixture of players of the scene versus entire bands. With nearly as much classic rock and metal (and a handful of new gen players) constituents wrangled beneath one banner as Hear ‘n Aid, We Wish You a Metal Christmas and a Headbanging New Year is a largely funmetal social mixer.

Just to hear Lemmy of Motorhead juke out a shucking version of Chuck Berry’s “Run Rudolph Run” with Dave Navarro and ZZ Top’s Billy Gibbons is a crowd-pleasing ditty, while Alice Cooper (who is having a banner year with his back-to-horror-business Along Came a Spider) gets away with murder by turning a terror-laced tweak upon a jolly yule classic with “Santa Claws Is Coming to Town.” Aiding Cooper on his shriek-filled monster mash Santa-style is Vinnie Appice, Billy Sheehan and John 5.

The name of the game with We Wish You a Metal Christmas and a Headbanging New Year is to not only heavy up traditional holiday hymns and carols, but to also mingle the players together, some to obvious effect, some not so much but to pleasantly hip delight in many cases. Sure, you can expect Ronnie James Dio with past and present cohorts Tony Iommi, Rudy Sarzo and Simon Wright to do up a droning doom-laden take on “God Rest Ye Merry Gentleman.” You can also expect Tommy Shaw of Styx and Damn Yankees to do a by-the-numbers aspirant take on John Lennon’s “Happy Xmas (War is Over)” with Toto guitarist Steve Lukather, Blue Murder’s Marco Mendoza and rock drummer journeyman Kenny Aronoff.

You get Stephen Pearcy and Tracii Guns doing a sloshy play on the already unscrupulous “Grandma Got Run Over By a Reindeer” with the David Lee Roth band-reunited Billy Sheehan and Greg Bisonnette along with Bob Kulick (Bob and his bro, former Kiss axe slinger Bruce check in all over the place on this album). You get Tim “Ripper” Owens wailing like a wildcat all over the greasy lickin’ good “Santa Claus Is Back In Town” with Marco Mendoza and Vinny Appice as well as Juan Garcia and the Dixie Dregs’ Steve Morse.

One of the coolest cuts on We Wish You a Metal Christmas and a Headbanging New Year is dUg Pinnick of King’s X leading a gorgeous and soulful send-up of “Little Drummer Boy” with George Lynch, Billy Sheehan and Prayerbox/The Orb’s Simon Phillips. Pinnick, who is always reliable to carry any tune with calm syncopation is the glue to this laidback sidewalk ditty based on a Christian staple.

On the other hand, Testament’s Chuck Billy and his demolition squad of Anthrax’s Scott Ian, Testament/Slayer/Exodus/White Zombie drummer John Tempesta, Shadows Fall’s Jon Donais and The Cult’s Chris Wyse rip out a hilarious thrash version of “Silent Night”upon which Chuck Billy pukes all over the words. Hard to take the song’s message of hope and peace to any kind of heart with these guys going positively berserk on it; however, this may be the greatest cut of “Silent Night” outside a conventional chorus version, if not the nastiest. If you thought Six Feet Under’s roasting of AC/DC’sBack in Black album was a hoot, you’ll be busting a gut over this blazing and brutal “Silent Night.”

Unfortunately, the mix of Geoff Tate’s sometimes overcooked vocals for “Silver Bells” overpowers his rhythm section of Carlos Cavazo, James Lomenzo and Ray Luzier, while you do have to chuckle as Ronnie James Dio well-dramatizes “God Rest Ye Merry Gentleman” with slow-brewedirony. Of course, Cavazo peels off a wicked cool solo on “Silver Bells” and the main rhythm drives along admirably, while Tony Iommi is a harbinger of the proverbial ghost of Christmas future with his iron-shackled power riffs.

Good to see Jeff Scott Soto getting loose on “We Wish You a Merry Christmas” following his unceremonious departure from Journey (viva la Panther, Jeff!) and perhaps there’s a subtle statement of accord that the former Yngwie Malmsteen frontman rubs elbows with the impresario’s current vocalist (“Ripper” Owens) on the same project. This is the inherent avowal of We Wish You a Metal Christmas and a Headbanging New Year, to align a heavy metal get-together in the spirit of unity and goodwill. As Soto interchanges between “We wish you a merry Christmas” and “We wish you a metal Christmas,” therein lies all the spice you need to make that heavy rocking egg nog more palatable.

Various Artists – We Wish You a Metal Christmas and a Headbanging New Year
Armoury Records
review by Ray Van Horn, Jr.

REVIEW: Sixx: A.M. The Heroin Diaries Soundtrack Deluxe Edition

Of all the various Motley Crue offshoot bands over the years such as Methods of Mayhem, 58 and Brides of Destruction, much less Vince Neil and Tommy Lee’s solo albums and Lee’s Rock Star Supernova, Sixx: A.M. is the most honest.

If you’ve read Nikki Sixx’s rendering book The Heroin Diaries: A Year in the Life of a Shattered Rock Star, you’re taken deep into his tattered mindframe circa 1986 and ’87 when Motley Crue ascended the ladder of hard rock success and subsequently released its second-biggest commercial hitGirls Girls Girlsahead of the far-superiorDr. Feelgood. Reading about Sixx’s extraordinarydecadence (even managing to out-shock Anthony Keidis of the Red Hot Chili Peppers and his own debased narrative Scar Tissue), Sixx admits Girls Girls Girlsin his opinion suffered much from his addictions and his inability at the time to get a grip on life. It’s also the reason—along with the other Motley Crue candid expose The Dirt—that Saints of Los Angeles is Motley’s best and most sincere album in years.

Forming Sixx: A.M. with the purpose of breathing musical life into Nikki Sixx’s sordid and troubled autobiography, the end result featuring James Michael on vocals and guitars and DJ Ashba also on guitars is decidedly an anti-Crue soul-purging. The Heroin Diaries Soundtrack weaves a drug-infested and clean-resurrected rock opera with appreciable candor and courage. Colliding excerpts of Sixx’s diaries with a sound bred of Meat Loaf, Muse, Hanoi Rocks and FM radio rock with dashes of haunted Danny Elfman-esque scores, The Heroin Diaries Soundtrack serves as fair warning to junkies in the guise of poster child rock stars. It is also Nikki Sixx’s confessional to his massive audience which headbanged along to his monster bass though keeping a wary eye on him, knowing he’s already dropped dead from this life for a few terrifying minutes.

There is hope amidst The Heroin Diaries Soundtrack as there is desperation and a self-flogging lament expounded from Nikki Sixx’s sinful past, one indirectly pinpointed to rejection in his youth by his estranged parents. Compounded into 13 songs which vary between pounding rock jams and fragile ballads born of pain instead of schmaltzy lust (“Tomorrow” and “Girl With Golden Eyes,” for instance), The Heroin Diaries Soundtrack respires on its soaring single “Life is Beautiful” as well the schizophrenic “Pray For Me.” It throws darts at an absentee father figure on “Dead Man’s Ballet” and swoons into gospel-laden choruses as compensation for the internal anger seething out of Sixx’s accusatory lyrics. No one could’ve predicted “Heart Failure” would be so tuneful with a combination of biting Goth riffs and a rockout solo section. Nevertheless there’s deeply buried apprehension in the low-end notes of the song that plummet the listener into Nikki Sixx’s near-death experience.

As Sixx: A.M. bravely mixes in random electro pulses, a Piccadilly circus of the damned nuance, a subliminal Eight Mile hip hop-rock grooveon “Van Nuys” and even some Beatles and Black Crowes swoons on “Permission,” The Heroin Diaries Soundtrack rises above the implication of cross-market gimmickry. Included in this deluxe edition is a bonus live CD recorded at this year’s Crue Fest, Live Is Beautiful. Featuring eight songs from The Heroin Diaries Soundtrack, only Nikki Sixx can attest to what it must’ve felt like to put his life’s story on display in front of a summer festival crowd, much less challenging them to wrap their heads around a frequently morose and cheerless form of metal expressionism, although “Life is Beautiful” and “Pray For Me” might be the two best songs Sixx has ever written. And you thought Motley’s “Danger” or the John Corabi-sung “Welcome to the Numb” were disturbed…

Sixx: A.M. – The Heroin Diaries Soundtrack Deluxe Edition
Eleven Seven Music

Review by Ray Van Horn, Jr

REVIEW: ROSE TATTOO – Blood Brothers

The name Rose Tattoo may or may not roll off your tongue as quickly as their Aussie brethren AC/DC and certainly the former hasn’t enjoyed the same prolific career as the latter. Still, if you like your rock served greasy and sloppy with a bit of Zeppelin and Faces in addition to the more obvious AC/DC jerks and chokes, then don’t be afraid to admit yourself as a latecomer. Step on up to Rose Tattoo, because even though the band has historically gone through lineup modifications and band hiatuses, when these lads get together, you can count on it being a loud, heel-stomping affair.

Rose Tattoo’s attitude towards their whiskey-soaked crunch chord chicanery is best summed up by their signature cuts “Bad Boy for Love” and “Nice Boys (Don’t Play Rock ‘n Roll),” the second of which became an equivalent signature cover tune for Guns ‘n Roses. While AC/DC went on with Bon Scott (and even their first few years with Brian Johnson) to become one the most dangerous bands in the world, Rose Tattoo took cue with the blessing of AC/DC’s management (Albert Productions). If there’s a difference between the two bands beyond pinnacles of success reached, it’s the fact Rose Tattoo are more punk-oriented, thus ostracizing them the proverbial bigger and better deal. Consider Rose Tattoo something along the lines of Iggy and The Stooges meets John Lee Hooker, pre-pop superstar Rod Stewart and of course, Angus Young, all set to the shuck and jive spirit of AC/DC’s “Bad Boy Boogie.”

Rose Tattoo’s claim to fame song is “Rock ‘n Roll Outlaw” (better known to eighties hairballs courtesy of Keel’s slip ‘n twang remake on the Dudes soundtrack) from their blistering 1978 self-titled debut album. Though Rose Tattoo might be considered a fair shade better than AC/DC’s Powerage released the same year, Angry Anderson and the boys would quickly be relegated to the cult ranks despite their propensity to blow ear canals to smithereens onstage. As for AC/DC, Dirty Deeds Done Dirt Cheap, which had been released two years’ prior, would find a second life in the early eighties(largely from the dirty title track and the hilarious cloak ‘n dagger raunch of “Big Balls” that had Gen X preteens rolling in school cafeterias), as well as Highway to Hell and of course, their eponymous Back in Black, which helped shove heavy metal on its darkened course.

Anderson has always carried a piss and swill swagger in his stage presence and most certainly his aural delivery. You have to when you’re a survivor of the Sydney pub crawl-and-brawl scene, which is where Rose Tattoo honed their tooth-dislodged style of rock. Though you can hear certain shades of Bon Scott to Anderson’s roughneck vocals, there’s something a bit more classically-trained beneath his wails and croons, a nuance that continues to serve him and Rose Tattoo as of the band’s latest offering Blood Brothers.

Even though “Standover Man,” “Lubricated” and “Man About Town” are more huff-and-puff-blow-the-roof down AC/DC-itched boogie jams, Rose Tattoo are perhaps the most forgivable hijackers of the scores of imitators because of their street bounce—which AC/DC until their latest album Black Ice was starting to lose in increments. You know these riffs like the back of your stankin’ bum, but Rose Tattoo delivers them with confidence and Michael Cocks’ filthy slide notes gives the band proper amplitude, much as he did back in the day before drifting away for a lengthy sabbatical after the band’s 1981 release Assault and Battery.

Though Rose Tattoo has been in a here-and-there stasis following their 2002 album Pain, there’s been no time lost on Blood Brothers, sound-wise. Anderson and his pack of rowdies pump out stamping rockers with unapologetic boom on “Nothing to Lose,” “Black Eyed Bruiser” and the brisk-tempoed “Slipping Away.” The bottlenecked twang of “Once in a Lifetime” is bluntly Zeppelin and Faces, while the slow drag of “City Blues” is basic and primal from the point-of-view of a downtrodden Jack addict.

While AC/DC’s Black Ice is a refreshing howdy-do, put up that album’s title track versus Rose Tattoo’s blood brother (pun intended) “Sweet Meat.” AC/DC throbs with casual candor on “Black Ice’s” strutting rhythm, while Rose Tattoo (in particular Michael Cocks, Stephen King and Dai Pritchard) punishes a very-similar melody with rudely-tugged riffs. Thus between the two, Rose Tattoo delivers more of an asphalt-chewed flavor. That being said, have Rose Tattoo finally bested their more popular peers at their own game? Give Blood Brothers a spin and be the judge…

Tracklist

1. Black Eyed Bruiser
2. Slipping Away
3. Once in a Lifetime
4. 1854
5. City Blues
6. Sweet Meat
7. Man About Town
8. Creeper
9. Stand Over Man
10. Nothing to Lose
11. Lubricated

SPV/Steamhammer
by Ray Van Horn, Jr.

REVIEW: Twisted Sister – Live at The Astoria CD/DVD

by Ray Van Horn/Global Music, courtesy AMP magazine

Fitting that TWISTED SISTER should provide a live documentation of one of their recent reunion gigs captured in Great Britain. In case you’re unaware of TWISTED SISTER’s long-ago history, the glam-based power rockers could hardly bend a dime in the United States to score a record deal despite being kings of Long Island and the surrounding New York and New Jersey territories. Despite being looked at by record execs in their up-and-coming club days, TWISTED SISTER was passed upon numerous times, thus forcing them across the pond to the UK where they scored their elusive deal on the Secret label (also famous for breaking hardcore legends THE EXPLOITED) to release their vital Under the Blade album.

Thus TWISTED SISTER is loosely regarded as a New Wave of British Heavy Metal band, having come up through the ranks alongside SAXON, IRON MAIDEN and JUDAS PRIEST. As TWISTED SISTER milked the snot out of British music television shows and haunted various UK amphitheatres and rock clubs, it would only take a couple of short years before Atlantic Records gobbled them up and sucked them into the party-hearty LA metal scene. Come their breakout Stay Hungry record, TWISTED SISTER became trashcan icons made popular by comic relief music videos, outrageous stage garb and a band unafraid to bark “Fuck you!” at their detractors, much less turncoat SMF’ers (if you don’t know what the acronym stands for, you’re not metal enough) who quickly bounced on them upon the release of Come Out and Play and Love is for Suckers. Unfortunately, said rejection by a metal public whom Dee Snider defended against the dreaded PMRC inevitably instigated f-bombs amongst the band members, thus prompting an 18-year estrangement.

Now with fences mended and a fair amount of road wear crackling beneath their dolls-from-hell facades, TWISTED SISTER in 2007 were on fire, as evidenced by Live at The Astoria. It’s terrific that TWISTED SISTER issues a hearty thank you to the British fans who first embraced them beyond the beer-swilling Yonkers crowds. In turn, Dee Snider and the boys belt out a hefty portion of early catalog classics from Under the Blade and You Can’t Stop Rock ‘n Roll, along with all of the familiars from Stay Hungry and a deuce from Come Out and Play, the title track and “The Fire Still Burns.”

The latter tune might as well be considered be considered TWISTED SISTER’s anthem for a new day of life, because the set spotlighted in Live at The Astoria is full of glorious piss and vinegar. Dee Snider’s exuberant thrashing around onstage is matched by his constantly tossed curls and his roughneck crowd better, all of which is devoured ravenously by the British faithful. Mark “The Animal” Mendoza wallops his bass as if spanking a generous handful of ass, while Jay Jay French and Eddie “Fingers” Ojeda prowl about and play their parts in a relaxed candor, even though French takes a moment or two to jaw with the crowd about the band’s past, namely how their exodus to England was a make or break endeavor that might’ve cost them a career had they not broken out.

As A.J. Pero keeps the set’s pulse steady, TWISTED SISTER aggressively nails “Shoot ‘Em Down,” “Like a Knife in the Back,” “Ride to Live” and “The Kids Are Back” while tossing out the standard hits “We’re Not Gonna Take It” and “I Wanna Rock” with the usual interactive crowd-pleasing aplomb. Nice to see that “The Price” still holds its own candle in this band as it’s one of the most significant cuts TWISTED SISTER ever recorded. Delivering it to a country that threw them their first true lifeline assuredly made it all worth it to carry on, as Dee would no doubt croon reverently…