This feels and sounds like an album and band who aren't in transition as such, but are a little lost in the direction they want to go. In recording albums such as Greatest Hits and Black Beauties and Cocked & Re-Loaded, the band re-recorded material from the days when they were at their biggest, and when their music was fresh and exciting. One would have thought that, having been through that process, it would have best served the band in trying to recapture that time, and help them to focus on writing in that kind of style again, to stay true to their roots and produce an album that brought all of that into the present time. Well, I can't say they did that with any great degree of success.
"Man in the Moon" is a reasonable start to the album, with Traci Guns and Mick Cripps guitars playing off each other nicely, and Steve Riley's drumwork pounding away furiously. As an intro to a new album, it does its job without inspiring any real emotional effect. Why then, after this solid beginning, do we fall into a song like "Beautiful", which just doesn't gel at all with the initial vibe of the album. Back we fall to mostly clear guitar, the drums quietly set in the background, and a song that sounds like it is going for the harmless 1970's almost hippy love fest. There is no correlation between the first two songs here, they are so different and unrelatable you can't believe they are from the same band let alone the same album. "Good Thing" then for some reason tries to build a bridge over that, and restore some sort of order that was established by the opening song, but there is still something that doesn't feel right. perhaps it is just the lingering aftertaste of the previous song, but there is still something missing here, something that was an integral part of L.A Guns music, but somehow just isn't here now.
And when the truth arrives, it is stark and disappointing. The naked energy and enthusiasm of those early albums is non existent here. It sounds as though the band is just going through the motions. It doesn't at any point sound as if any of the protagonists are really pumped to be there, and the lack of inspiration is a detriment to what we are listening to.
And it doesn't improve from here either. I don't know what Phil was trying to do with his vocals in "Spider's Web". They don't seem to be anywhere close to the melody of the riff being played. If his vocals were a guitar I would have said it needed to be re-tuned. That's how it sounds to me, that he's singing the melody, but his vocal chords are out of tune with the song. It is very strange and off putting. "Don't Call Me Crazy" starts of as if it is going to have that real pacey hard rock sound that L.A. Guns was famous for, but the drum roll bursts into... slow, melodramatic backbeat and guitar, and a mournfully lethargic ballad-like droning that stretches out for seven minutes but feels like an hour and seven minutes. What on earth is this? What have you done with the band we all remember and love?
"Hypnotised" tries to redeem what has come before, finally picking up the momentum, and also allowing Steve Riley to showcase his wares at least. I'm still not convinced about the vocals, but the song itself sounds much better and more like the band we know. Even "Fast Talkin' Dream Dealer" makes you think that all may not be lost. This is one of only two songs on the album that SOUNDS like L.A Guns real material, with that L.A hard rock sound racing through, while "Out of Sight" is a reasonable assimilation of the same degree of song.
Now. What the hell is going on with "Turn It Around"?! This is five and a half minutes of pure rubbish. This comes across as the band's attempt to do a really poor cross between a mournful David Bowie / Alice Cooper epic tragedy ballad piece. There is literally nothing here of any value. The vocals again are sung at that almost out of key wailing which just seems completely out of place. It is therefore somewhat surprising that the one song on this album that comes within a bulls roar of what one would consider a real L.A. Guns song is the final track, "Scream". It moves at the right tempo, the guitar riff is amiable, the dual guitar solos do the job, and vocally it sounds like the real Phil Lewis has returned. It's not magnificent, but it at least sounds like it has the same parentage as their classic tracks from the late 1980's. It's just such a shame that it is the last track, when to be honest it could have been the opening track, and then had many brothers and sisters after it.
While this album is not a complete loss, it really has too many poor variations to be considered better than average. Three or four songs could be salvaged here and played at any time for enjoyment sake, but there are also three or four shockers that just don't cut it in any way, shape or form. Listen with the remote control and 'skip' button on standby.
Rating: Sometimes I just want to scream. 2.5/5
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