Review Summary: A bad follow-up to decent Born Again
After Jani Lane quit in 2004, Warrant survived two vocalist replacements. The first one was Jamie St. James, with whom the band recorded the surprisingly energetic
Born Again. Then, when the new line-up went into studio to work on a new album, the management persuaded Lane to return. This resulted in a tour of the reunited band which ended not with a bang, but with a whimper – before the conclusion of the tour, Lane left Warrant once more, this time for good. To replace him, the band invited Robert Mason (ex-
Lynch Mob), who helped during the remaining concerts and later officially joined as their new vocalist. And so
Rockaholic, released in 2011, was recorded with this line-up, which has remained constant thus far.
After the straightforward (albeit derivative) hard rock of
Born Again, it was somewhat curious what the new LP would sound like with the new vocalist: whether Warrant would continue in the direction indicated earlier, return to its initial sound, or go somewhere else. Quite often, the departure of a band’s leader ends unpleasantly for two primary reasons: on the one hand, this immediately results in a break-up; on the other hand, songwriting quality frequently takes a nosedive, again resulting in a break-up (although there are examples of other, positive outcomes).
What is immediately noticeable on
Rockaholic is the absence of the liveliness and energy present on
Born Again, which previously allowed us to let slide, to some extent, the lack of originality. Here, the band members sound tired and uninspired, playing as if they have to, instead of enjoying the process. In addition to this, not one musician in Warrant – be it the guitarists, bass player, or drummer – produces anything that can be described as anything more than ‘solid and average’. When you combine all this and multiply it by 14 (the number of tracks on the new album), it equals to 54 minutes of dubious pleasure.
Unfortunately, the new vocalist fails to improve the situation. In terms of vocals, Mason is completely in synch with the rest of the band – his performance is solid, but in no way outstanding. Nowhere on the album does he deliver or even touch upon anything remotely exciting, producing a standard and predictable result, thus adding one more minus to the big picture.
With the record’s contents, the situation is no less sad. Instead of that hilarious, lively gibberish presented as lyrics on
Born Again,
Rockaholic provides a CD-full of clichés far from the highest order. Practically all songs are devoted to one topic only – women and everything related to them in one way or another. It is enough to just take a look at the track titles –
Sex Ain’t Love,
Innocence Gone,
Snake,
What Love Can Do,
Tears in the City – and you get a complete picture of the thematic extent and diversity provided on the album. Moreover, Warrant decided to load the record with a number of third-rate ballads (something they forsook on the previous LP). Sure, they could have spiced up the blandness with some humor or exquisiteness of phrase and imagery, but it seems this wasn’t the objective. It is when comparing it to
Rockaholic that you start to realize the earlier albums were not that bad because of the effort put in by Jani Lane, and here his absence is a lot more noticeable than it was on
Born Again.
The result is quite disappointing. The band that never really had big ambitions and made only moderate attempts to improve their sound managed to lose their enthusiasm and produced an album unessential even for fans of Warrant. Everything on
Rockaholic is competent and professionally made, but fails to generate any kind of interest. It is probable that the band was displeased with the result too, as there seem to be no plans to release a new album. Instead, Warrant decided to follow the example of their brethren in trade and live off touring and early successes. However, anything is possible.
