Velvet Revolver

Contraband

One of the best rock albums in years

Review Score:

(10/10)
I'll admit to bias right off...I am a huge Stone Temple Pilots fan. Also, I grew up in the 80s and I loved Guns N Roses. They weren't my favorite band, but I was a big fan, nonetheless.

If you are familiar with those two bands, you should have a good idea of what to expect here. In my opinion, this album is the perfect marriage of the heavy rock of Stone Temple Pilots and the guitar riffs of Guns N Roses.

It seems that since the early 80s, the plan of the music business has been to saturate the market with whatever is selling the most albums. As a result, by the end of the 80s, we had hundreds of bands on the radio playing blazing guitar solos until we couldn't take it anymore. The toned down "grunge rock" was just what we needed to get the taste out of our mouths. However, I feel that the guitar solo is something that rock fans have loved since at least the 60s and something that has been sorely missing in most of today's rock music.

Velvet Revolver fixes that, and it does it without sounding out of place in today's music. As much as I love the debut CD by Jet, the CD sounds like it belongs on record shelves 30 years ago. Velvet Revolver also doesn't sound like a parody of the 80s like the Darkness does.

In short, there isn't a lot of rock music that really gets me excited anymore. There are lots of great songs out there today, but too many of the bands seem interchangable and as a result disposable. Velvet Revolver has a great sound and seems to have great chemistry. I love almost all of the songs on Contraband. If this band stays together, I expect more great albums.

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