Artist: Velvet Revolver
Label: RCA Records
Release: 2007
I won’t argue! Quite likely, to plenty of “modern folks” my taste in music looks like some long-dead beast, its little body rotted away by the tireless work of assorted parasites and so soon to be thoroughly fossilized, shamelessly stinking up the neighborhood. Which still absolutely shouldn’t be an excuse for the many a headache that swayed uncontrollably around my hollow skull while I was dissecting the latest product of the velvet pistols, comically named Libertad. The ongoing, unsuccessful attempt to live down the stigma after the Audioslave shipwreck, the last remaining “supergroup”, ends ignominiously with Libertad: in constant genre wandering between punk rock, grunge, and for a moment even some fucking Poison-style cowboy yeehaw hopping!
With names that big, you’d expect the initially rather clumsy Velvet Revolver stumbling to be over for good after what we might, conditionally, call the slip-up that was Contraband. So why this chameleon-like shape-shifting, so unbecoming at their age, which after the generous hard-rock parade of the opener Let It Roll, and somewhere in the middle the not exactly thrilling For A Brother with its firm grungy grip, stabs us treacherously in the back. Those on their own aren’t yet the disruptive factor that dutifully keeps the album from holding together. What makes Libertad problematic is mostly the mixing of those styles, whose common denominator is forced, glaringly insincere storytelling. Amid the emptiness left behind by the clash of “two different ideologies”, we find a half-baked take on the ELO classic Can’t Get It Out Of My Head, a pale attempt at recreating the mood and atmosphere of its not-that-much-more-reliable predecessor Fall To Pieces. Closest to the latter, mostly thanks to Slash’s infectious guitar, comes the digestible Gravedancer, an interesting little ballad that, together with the similarly pensive The Last Fight, satisfyingly rounds out Velvet Revolver’s friendlier side.
All well and good, but what about the fiery power of the revolvers? I can calmly call it a lot of racket with a minimal dose of effect, where, besides the opener, the most impressive of the lot are She Builds Quick Machines and the properly scuffed-up Get Out The Door! Then there’s the nostalgic trip down memory lane to the glory days of Use Your Illusion, marking the simple Mary Mary. Somewhere in between gets stuck the pervert Amerikan Man, while with the punkish burn of Just Sixteen he’s a young man of fairly acceptable views, and with Pills, Demons & Etc we witness yet another headless wander under the dictate of hard, content-free guitar grips, which then faceplants into the senseless, Texas-flavored acoustics of Don’t Drop That Dime! Shame.
After such expressionless delivery of impotent musical ideas, it seems wise to ask what’s actually left for our velvet friends. Truth be told, not much, well, at least if they plan to keep going in this vein! Once it might still be bad luck, some expected result of developing currents, or some other extenuating circumstance, but when it happens a second time, there’s usually little room left for doubt. Honestly, I expected a lot more from Velvet Revolver the second time around, mostly after what I saw at this year’s Gods Of Metal (RockLine report here!). But if it doesn’t work, it doesn’t work!
Line-up
Scott Veiland – vocals
Slash – guitar
Dave Kushner – guitar
Duff McKagan – bass, backing vocals
Matt Sorum – drums, backing vocals
Production
Brendan O’Brien & Velvet Revolver
Track list
1.Let It Roll
2.She’s Mine
3.Get Out The Door
4.She Builds Quick Machines
5.The Last Fight
6.Pills, Demons & Etc.
7.American Man
8.Mary Mary
9.Just Sixteen
10.Can’t Get It Out Of My Head
11.For A Brother
12.Spay
13.Gravedancer
14.Don’t Drop That Dime
