My Amazon Reviews: Kiss "Monster"

Dinosaurs Still Stomp the Earth
3 Out Of 5 Stars

For their 20th studio album in 40 years, Kiss lean into their strength as old-man rockers. "Monster" treads the same stomping grounds as past Kiss albums like "Revenge" or "Sonic Boom," doing their utter best to capture passed glories, while still rocking righteously. Paul is still in fine voice and Gene is still in big ego. Expecting anything else?

Well, you shouldn't be. Kiss has been Stanley/Simmons with sidemen since Ace and Peter left almost three decades ago. They have carried that with aplomb and made plenty of good music, even if the themes have not changed all that much. Gene still sings about being the demon and headed "Back To The Stone Age," they still try and flaunt outsider status on "Freak," and Tommy Thayer is coached to sound as much like Ace as he can on "Outta This World." Drummer Eric Singer does his time on "All For The Love of Rock and Roll" to keep up the appearances of a democratic, four man band.

Make no mistake, though. This is the Stanley/Simmons machine, with Paul still strutting his stuff (the love on an elevator saga "Take Me Down Below" and the first single "Hell or Hallelujah") and Gene is still in arrested development ("The Devil Is Me"). The lone concession to trying something out of character is the a capella opening on "Eat Your Heart Out." As for the rest of "Monster," you've heard this before. It's not a bad Kiss album, it's just Kiss being Kiss.

Meanwhile. more from the oldman rock brigade....

     

My Amazon Reviews: Scorpions "Comeblack"

Don't call it a Comeblack.... 
3 Out Of 5 Stars

It's hard to elevate the new (and allegedly, final) Scorpions album "Comeblack." For whatever reason, the band decided to revisit some of their greatest hits, along with members' personal favorites. We'll cover the bad news first: the re-recordings offer nothing new. They're basically note-by-rote redoes. I understand that bands occasionally do retreads to get a better royalty rate or creative/licensing control over their songs, but otherwise, why redo a song as perfect as "Wind of Change" or "Rock You Like a Hurricane" for a new tour?

Then there's the second half. Who would have guessed that T-Rex or "Tainted Love" were in the Scorpions' box of guilty pleasures? Or that they'd so totally get off on tearing up on The Kinks' "All The Day and All Of The Night"? Rudolf Schenker and Matthias Jabs sound like they're have a ball turning T Rex's "Children Of The Universe" into a crunch fest. Then you get Klaus Meine showing off his genuine vocal chops by tackling The Stones' "Ruby Tuesday" and The Beatles' "Across The Universe." These make the last half of "Comeblack" into a pretty cool party album. However, it's not going to make me discard my copy of "Deadly Sting" anytime soon.

   

My Amazon Reviews: Van Halen "Different Kind of Truth"

Older Brother is Watching You
4 Out Of 5 Stars

When the original edition of Van Halen made 1984, it was a peak that made them explode. Not just commercially, but internally. By the next album, Sammy Hagar was on-board and the band made another great album, 5150. But after that, it was diminishing returns for all involved. David Lee Roth had enough in him for a couple of decent solos, Van Hagar made big, bombastic albums that relied mostly on Eddie's guitar, and Eddie was rapidly going into substance abuse collapse. By "Balance" (and even worse, "VH3"), Van Halen wasn't much to listen to anymore. Naturally, this fed into the nostalgia for the glory days of 1978-84, and the reunion tour fanned the flames.

So, 28 years after "1984," Eddie and Dave are back together. Alex Van Halen and Eddie's son Wolfgang (on bass) complete the line-up. How does the new "A Different Kind of Truth" stack up? For starters, it's no 1984, or 5150. Or even "Women and Children First," for that matter. However, it smokes almost every other laughably juvenile Van Hagar album from OU812 on. It also clobbers Hagar's Chickenfoot with no problems. Everything you loved about those early VH classics is here. Eddie hammerfingers his guitar ("As Is"), Dave scatter sings and raps lasciviously in that dirty way of his. There's even a little social consciousness on "Outta Space."

Missing are any powerhooks or the dynamite covers from the DLR years (think "You Really Got Me" or "Oh Pretty Woman"). The harmonies are just like you remember ("Tattoo" is the finest example) and Eddie has lost none of his power. The riffs on "Chinatown" and "Honeybabysweetiedoll" will rock your sneakers loose. Pretty darn cool stuff, and as Dave hollers in the last song - and I'll bet, encore number to come - "Beats Working!"

   

My Amazon Reviews: Toto "The Essential Toto"

Oh So Toto  
3 Out of 5 Stars

Toto is one of those bands only the late 70's could have produced. Studio cats one and all (they made their bones backing Steely Dan and Boz Scaggs, among others), they were slick, skilled and polished professionals. They made music that was slick, polished, and just as professional. They meshed hooky rock with R'n'B styles, and when they finally hooked up with CBS Records, "Hold The Line" shot to the top five almost instantly.

Over the course of seven albums for Columbia and a few since for the CBS Legacy subsidiary, they've made a bevy of hits and walked off with a few Grammys. The Band's prime was the first four albums, culminating in "Toto IV." Apart from "Hold The Line," it was this album that made the band radio favorites. The singles "Africa" and "Rosanna" are the calling cards from that period, with the songs "Make Believe" and "I Won't Hold You Back" also scoring. By then, though, the band was beginning to splinter.

There was a new vocalist for the album "Isolation," and the two singles from that album ("Stranger In Town" and "Holyanna") are left off this compilation. Toto then recruited Joe Williams, the son of John Williams, and scored another pair of hits with "I Won't Hold You Back" and "Pamela." (From the albums "Fahrenheit" and "The Seventh One," respectively.) If a song called "Pamela" would make you think of "Rosanna" (or even "Holyanna), you're right. It's little more than a re-write of the band's biggest hit.

There are three other songs from the albums after; you probably don't need them. Given that the albums "Turn Back" and "Isolation" are ignored for this set, the three later-day songs could have been replaced with selections from two earlier albums, or even an extra selection from "Hydra," the band's most progressive sounding album. ("99" is here, though.) I have also never been fond of "Georgy Porgy," which sounds like a song Boz Scaggs laughed off from "Silk Degrees." These omissions drag this "Essential" collection down to a C Grade/3 Star rating.

 

My Amazon Reviews: 30 Seconds To Mars "This Is War"

Battle Anthems - 4 Out of 5 Stars 

For their 3rd album, 30 Seconds To Marswant you to know that they're deep. They've got big thoughts. They're serious thinkers. They are epic. You will pump your fists. You'll feel liberated. Get on board, brothers and sisters, The Revolution will be digitized. Lights, fog machine, action! Drama! Get on your feet! Lift those cell-phones in the air and light up the stadium, concert goers!

"This Is War" is Jared Leto's big statement. There's plenty of rising up to be done here, with victory, faith, and railing against the

oppressors. Youthful choirs raise hopefully from song after song, with militaristic beats propelling Leto as he goes from whispers to screams. The music itself follows suit, with crashing, anthemic guitars blasting through barricades like U2 hadn't been invented yet. Lead single "Kings and Queens" is a penultimate radio record, all meat and huge hooks, utterly destroying any chance of you noticing how derivative the song itself is. Same with "Night Of The Hunter," "Stranger In A Strange Land" and the title track.

That pretty much describes "This Is War" overall. Like any good actor, Leto knows his moves and his music is both crowd pleasing and widescreening. Heck, I could imagine this being played under the visuals for "Avatar," or even some sci-fi cheese like "Starship Troopers" The big, emotive roar that is 30 Seconds to Mars - and worked so well on A Beautiful Lie- is still in full effect here, and "This Is War" is a really ambitious sounding album. However, the constant battle-cries that push this album to nearly an hour's running time eventually weigh it down, and when you compare it to the similarly themed Muse CD The Resistance, "This Is War" ultimately comes up short.