Review Summary: Slash and friends do a nice job.
Super groups can be very hit/miss, it depends on who you pick to be in your super group, and even then it may not be enough. Cream was truly the ultimate super group, blending Ginger Baker’s melodic jazz-influenced drumming, Jack Bruce’s grooving bass lines and vocals, and Eric Clapton’s brilliant guitar lines to make what would be some of the best Psychedelic Rock ever released. However, super groups have also faced their fair share of failures and misshapes, and Velvet Revolver’s first album
Contraband falls into that category. To put it simply,
Contraband was mediocre hard rock, full of many noticeable problems like the production, and Scott Weiland. With two years’ time, the super group has managed to make a second album,
Libertad, and the major question is, how does it follow up?
Well, the production of
Libertad is certainly better than
Contraband. Josh Abraham’s production style fit more with nu-metal bands than with hard rock super groups, and thus the production on
Contraband sounded very muddy and overall meek. Brendan O’ Brein’s style of production is much cleaner, giving slate to the two most important parts of the album; the vocals and the guitar work.
Yes I did say the vocals, and I literally mean it, Scott Weiland did a good job on this job. To put it simply, this is Scott Weiland’s most inspired performance, and is the single greatest thing he has ever done for our society. His vocals are strong, the soar, and they fit the music perfectly. On “The Last Fight”, Scott shows us some southern tone, and some touching, emotional vocals to help us through the nice sounding ballad. The only problem that still remains with Scott is his tendency to write sh
itty lyrics. The lyrics aren’t Stone Temple Pilots bad, but they’re still pretty god damn bad. Scott’s lyrics range from average to laughably bad, with some of the worst being on opener “Let It Roll”:
“Can't burn her out of my head/Drink her off of my mind/Can't burn her out of my head/Drink her off of my mind/Let it roll/Candy-o/Candy, candy, candy, candy, candy-o”
If we have to hear lyrics like that all in the first song, Scott Weiland should be paying us to listen to this album. Scott Weiland has made a major improvement on his vocals, but still drags behind drastically in the lyrics department.
Unlike the lyrics, the music on
Libertad is fairly good, but is also somewhat forgettable and generic. The music mixes the sleazy glam rock of Guns N Roses with a heavier sound, possibly of Slash’s Snakepit, and puts it together in a fun and enjoyable way. However, the music is nothing spectacular at all, with most of the rhythmic guitar lines are mere power chords, and the drum beats and bass lines are just along for the ride, doing nothing out of the ordinary. But then there is Slash, whose guitar wankery is world renowned and something truly, for a lack of a better work, awesome. His riffs are accessible, yet technical, and his riff skills are shown on songs such as “Get out the Door” and “She Builds Quick Machines”. His solos are good, but most of his performances on this album are fairly average for him, with the exception for the Shred Master 5000 solo on “She Builds Quick Machines”. So with
Libertad. Velvet Revolver prove they can make some good music, but it’s ultimately generic hard rock with some slight sleaze influences on the vocals and lyrics.
Libertad is a big improvement over
Contraband, and although that isn’t saying much,
Libertad is still a good record in its own right. Slash’s guitar work is great, but ultimately an average performance by his standard with a few exceptions, Scott Weiland’s vocals are surprisingly good, but the rest of the band ultimately just shows up and does nothing spectacular at all. Ultimately, this record is for Slash fanatics and for new comers of hard rock looking for something catchy and fun, but not too influential or anything along those lines.
