One Sober Comeback4 Out Of 5 Stars
Despite the fact that the newly sobered Aerosmith released "Done With Mirrors" to a collective yawn, the band knew they were on to something when their guest appearance on Run DMC's cover of "Walk This Way" got the band back on the radio and MTV. In fact, if you read Steven Tyler's biography "Does the Noise in My Head Bother You?: A Rock 'n' Roll Memoir," he barely even mentions "Mirrors." The reason might just be that "Permanent Vacation" both buried "Mirrors" in its wake and took advantage of nostalgia the Run DMC turn had ginned up for the group.
"Permanent Vacation" pulled all the stops: hot producer Bruce Fairbairn came into the studio to slicken the band up, hired gun songwriters Desmond Child and Jim Vallance (who usually wrote for/with Bryan Adams) churned up the hooks, and both Tyler and Joe Perry were in top form. They also entered the world of 80's power ballads with "Angel," which put them back into the top ten for the first time in over a decade. The band had sharpened up considerably since going sober, with songs like "Hangman's Jury" and the cover of The Beatles' "I'm Down" taking the band back to their roots.
More to the point, Aerosmith was no longer afraid of an obvious hit single. Both "Rag Doll" and "Dude Looks Like a Lady" kicked out of any radio station with ear-shattering force. Their willingness to also embrace some fresh quirks (the Caribbean goofiness of the title track or the slick horns and strings that pop up throughout the disc) made clear that Aerosmith was both back and hungry to establish themselves back at the top of the American Rock Heap. "Permanent Vacation" was the first half of a mammoth one-two punch that "Pump" completed the clobbering (and became their first top ten album since the classic "Rocks").
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