The former Guns N’ Roses guitarist doesn’t misfire in his first solo album.
With the release of Slash, the iconic top hat-wearing Rock god can finally shut his naysayers up. The album has already sold more than 50,000 copies in America. Also, it has been reported by The Canadian Press that Slash topped the HMV Canada CD sales chart, even beating the country’s own pop superstar, Justin Bieber and his album My World 2.0.
The self-titled debut album, coming after a career spanning more than a quarter of a century, features an eclectic group of the veritable Who’s Who in the music business as guest vocalists. We’re talking about the likes of the sexy Fergie (Black Eyed Peas), playboy Maroon 5’s Adam Levine, and even the godfather of Heavy Metal, Ozzy Osbourne, frontman of Heavy Metal band Black Sabbath. With this star-studded line-up, Slash has pulled out all the stops to show listeners how different genres of music can still sound brutal and melodic.
The song “Beautiful Dangerous” is the most controversial and talked about track of this album. Slash was accused of selling-out as he chose to cast the Black Eyed Peas singer in this album. The inclusion of Fergie paid dividends, however, as this turned out to be one of the gems in Slash. It was nice to see Fergie step out from her usual hip-hop routine and belt out a rock number. Now Fergie can add “the rock chick that jammed with Slash” as one of her credits. The song will undoubtedly draw comparison to Rihanna’s “Rockstar 101”, which, coincidentally, also featured him. That collaboration made Rihanna looked like a wannabe trying to be a rock star whereas Fergie is the real deal in “Beautiful Dangerous”.
Head bangers out there will be relieved to know this album hasn’t gone all soft and mellow. Slash’s style of blues-rock riffing and phrasing can still be heard in the album. What’s a rock album without guitar solos and crunchy, overdriven riffs? His signature wah-wah naturally makes an appearance in this album. This is truly the work of the music deity, who Time Magazine rightly crowned as the second best of the “10 Best Electric Guitar Players” last year, coming only after the legendary late Jimi Hendrix.
Ozzy Osbourne provided vocals for the song “Crucify The Dead”. Speculations surfaced over the Internet that the song is about a certain Mr Axl Rose, the co-founder and only original member of Guns N’ Roses still singing. The chorus of the song could well be a subliminal message regarding Slash’s “like brothers with the world in our hands” famous former band mate. “A loaded gun jammed by a Rose. The thorns are not around your head. Your ego cuts you till you bled. You cannot crucify the dead, to me you’re dead.”
Although Slash has been quoted saying that the lyrics were written by Osbourne, he has also admitted that some parts of the song accurately reflect his life.
On a less antagonistic note, rock purists will rejoice to find out that Dave Grohl (Foo Fighters) and Velvet Revolver’s Duff McKagan (his long-time bassist buddy for most of his musical career) lent a hand in recording “Watch This”, a 3-minute-40-second instrumental. Once labeled as a drum god, the former Nirvana drummer certainly didn’t disappoint by providing brutal and energetic beats and his drum fills packed with raw emotion and intensity. McKagan was bassist, naturally. “Watch This” was all the more enjoyable because it sounds like 3 renowned musicians just jamming in a room and having fun at the same time.
Although there are a number of tracks worth listening to in Slash, there are also a couple that failed to deliver given the stature of the artist.
The collaboration of with M.Shadows on “Nothing to Say” was mediocre at best. The lead singer of Avenged Sevenfold failed to impress even though the song adopts a dark, sinister theme, which is one of the fortes of the metal band from California. The song lacks depth and it gets too repetitive and gets mundane halfway through the 5-minute mark although Slash attempted to shred on this track.
Another track that didn’t shine as brightly as the rest is “Saint Is A Sinner”. Although the song has a beautiful and languid acoustic guitar melody to it, the vocals provided by Rocco de Luca is not as powerful and moving as compared to the rest of the artists who featured in this album.
Overall, Slash is must buy for those who appreciate good old fashioned rock music, not the manufactured stuff that has tainted too much of the music industry
The UrbanWire gives Slash a rating of 3.5/5.
Release Date: April 6 2010
Artiste: Slash
Album Title: Slash
Track List:
1. “Ghost” (feat. Ian Astbury & Izzy Stradlin)
2. “Crucify the Dead” (feat. Ozzy Osbourne)
3. “Beautiful Dangerous” (feat. Fergie)
4. “Back from Cali” (feat. Myles Kennedy)
5. “Promise” (feat. Chris Cornell)
6. “By the Sword” (feat. Andrew Stockdale)
7. “Gotten” (feat. Adam Levine)
8. “Doctor Alibi” (feat. Lemmy)
9. “Watch This” (feat. Dave Grohl & Duff McKagan)
10. “I Hold On” (feat. Kid Rock)
11. “Nothing to Say” (feat. M. Shadows)
12. “Starlight” (feat. Myles Kennedy)
13. “Saint is a Sinner Too” (feat. Rocco DeLuca)
14. “We’re All Gonna Die” (feat. Iggy Pop)
