Galeote: Hair Metal

lunes, 30 de mayo de 2011

Dokken - 1999 - Erase The Slate

George Lynch departed the Dokken reunion following 1997's Shadowlife, handing the reins over to ex-Winger guitarist Reb Beach. Beach has more than enough chops to fill Lynch's shoes, and although he brings his own musical personality to the riffs and solos, the songs' melodies are still recognizably Dokken. Unfortunately, those melodies are typical of post-reunion Dokken more often than not, with the band seemingly struggling to come up with the big chorus hook and just not quite getting there (a problem, come to think of it, that sometimes plagued the band in their heyday as well). Although Beach acquits himself well, the songwriting ultimately sinks the record; besides, at this stage of the game, it's difficult to believe Don Dokken when he sings "I must confess, I'm the maddest hatter of them all." Erase the Slate is workmanlike retro-'80s hard rock at its best, and thoroughly unmemorable at its worst.

1 Erase the Slate Dokken 3:47
2 Change the World Dokken 4:35
3 Maddest Hatter Dokken 4:38
4 Drown Dokken 4:53
5 Shattered Dokken 4:40
6 One Nilsson 3:10
7 Who Believes Dokken 4:23
8 Voice of the Soul Dokken 4:12
9 Crazy Mary Goes Round Dokken 3:00
10 Haunted Lullabye Dokken 4:47
11 In Your Honor Dokken 4:31
12 [Untitled] Dokken 1:16

¡Aquí!

sábado, 28 de noviembre de 2009

Y&T - 2005 - Unearthed, Vol. 2

A follow-up to Dave Meniketti's first trawl through the Y&T tape vaults, Unearthed, Vol. 2 contains 18 more Y&T songs recorded at various points between 1973 (when they were a Bay Area hard rock band called Yesterday & Today) and 1989 (the end of their largely failed Geffen-era attempt at an Aerosmith-style comeback appealing to the hair-farmer audience). The album opens with the snarling "Face to Face," a riff-rocker co-written by Ronnie Montrose of the titular band with whom Y&T were most often compared in the early days, and skips around non-chronologically from there. Highlights include early versions of a few familiar tunes: "Dance Dance Dance" was eventually re-recorded in 1987 as "L.A. Rocks," but this rougher-edged version is superior, as is the original acoustic version of "Hands of Time," which smokes the later power ballad version that appeared on a charity compilation in the late '80s. Meniketti's impressively honest liner notes promise a warts-and-all listening experience, the most bumpy-sounding being the sluggish, overlong "More" and "Help Me Hear Me," which is rather blatantly ripped off from Deep Purple's "Gypsy."