1116. Adrian Smith & Richie Kotzen / Smith/Kotzen. 2021. 3.5/5

By all accounts, Richie Kotzen and Adrian Smith have been friends for some years, and have often spoken about doing some sort of project together. And all it took for it to happen was a worldwide pandemic that halted all live tours and essentially anything to do with people congregating together any time soon, for it to happen. Now, blues and blues rock are not at the top of my listening list. Obviously, many heavy metal and hard rock bands have had blues influences interwoven through their songs and albums over the last 50 years. A lot of early AC/DC songs is the best example of this. And being a great Gary Moore fan there was a lot of blues to listen to in his final twenty years, and at least his first two blues-only albums are still great to listen to. And Jeff Healey was another blues artist who I admired greatly, especially for his debut album.

So, coming into this album, once you know that the basis of all the songs is blues rock, then you can appreciate it for what it is and not for what you might have been hoping for. And let’s face it, Richie Kotzen’s greatest claim to fame is as a riffing blues hard rock guitarist. And while Adrian Smith may have spent the majority of his career in one of the greatest heavy metal bands of all time, he has shown a penchant for various styles of music outside of his Maiden hours, with the soft rock project ASaP album Silver and Gold, the differing hard rock project Psycho Motel albums State of Mind and Welcome to the World and the frenzied extreme project Primal Rock Rebellion album Awoken Broken. So, when the first teaser single was released, entitled “Take My Chances,” I always knew that we were not going to be getting a Bruce Dickinson's The Chemical Wedding or Paul Stanley’s Live to Win.
The reason we all came to the album was for the guitars, and in that respect there is no disappointment. Both men have shown themselves throughout their careers to be terrific guitarists, and they deliver fantastically throughout. Even when, in my humble opinion, a song is a little on the over-zealous or predictable side – yes, you can read ‘boring’ in there if you like and you wouldn’t be far off the mark – that is not the case with the traded guitar solo breaks. They are the highlight of each song and of the album overall. I don’t even think there is any element of one-upmanship going on. I just think they both genuinely enjoyed the challenge of playing with each other, and rather than try and outdo each other they played solos that complemented each other, and in a project like this, that must be a difficult thing to do at times. And this is best shown on the songs that have that little bit more momentum than the others.

Both Smith and Kotzen share all the duties between themselves throughout the album - guitars, bass, vocals, composing and production. No mean feat, but something that no doubt made writing and recording during a pandemic an easier and necessary thing to do. Kotzen also plays drums on five tracks and his touring partner Tal Bergman, Richie’s longstanding friend and touring partner, plays drums on the songs "You Don’t Know Me", "I Wanna Stay" and "'Til Tomorrow". The album also features a special guest performance from Iron Maiden drummer Nicko McBrain on "Solar Fire", which may have something to do with me thinking it is the best overall song on the album.

Blues rock has always been something that I can listen to, but probably choose not to on most occasions when it comes to looking for an album to listen to. And that doesn’t preclude the albums and artists I mentioned at the top of the episode. At work, having this album on has been great. It blends into the background and is really enjoyable when it comes to that office environment. However, I do not mind admitting that when I get home, I want something a bit more aggressive, a bit heavier, and bit more fist pumping. And while there will always be times in that environment that it will be good to put on, I fear that won’t be the case on a regular basis. For those that are fans of the genre, I think you will find this is an excellent album full of great guitar highlights. Richie is the main vocalist and is as good as ever, and Adrian’s additions along the way are also enjoyable. Some of the songs for me extend longer than they need to, or feel they need to at least. This isn’t what you would classify as an ‘easy listening’ album, but it is an album that in the right mood will slip comfortably into the background and enhance whatever it is you are doing. The skills of these two gentlemen are not in doubt, and by bringing them together in this project they have again shown their brilliant skills and musical versatility, and it is more than worth your while in giving it a listen.

Rating: "Well, they told me in school not to mess with the rules" 3.5/5

1115. The Offspring / Let the Bad Times Roll. 2021. 3.5/5

Any time that a band that is as universally admired and loved as The Offspring was during the 1990’s and through the 2000’s that then finds itself in a lull of some years in regards to new material being released, will necessarily have questions asked of it. Even when you look at the story, and discover the legal problems that required fixing, the loss of their recording contract, the change of personnel within and around the band, and finally a pandemic that delayed the eventual release of their new material by almost 18 months, it is hard to fathom that there was a nine year wait between albums. That’s Metallica-like, though with the depreciating returns from album sales to artists it is becoming a more routine thing. Eventually though, after various writing and recording spurts and a final waiting call due to Covid19, we have the new Offspring album in our hands, titled Let the Bad Times Roll.

From the outset this is an album that lyrically is following a similar pattern to voicing how the world was witnessing the mood within the United States in particular over the past four years, if not longer. The vocals may not be as belligerently hostile as they were with the band 25 years ago, but there’s little doubt in the words exactly what they are saying. Lyrics such as these from the opening track, “This is Not Utopia” - “These dying streets are bruised and beaten, and riot flags are waving, poor and weak, we extend this streak, these lives we could be saving”. Even the title gives away the band’s thoughts on their home country – and this was recorded BEFORE what happened in the US during 2020. There’s a lot more material there just from those 12 months. This then leads into the title track, “Let the Bad Times Roll” – which musically at least to me is so much like a Fall Out Boy song. Lyrically and visually however it continues down the same path as the album opener, this time focusing on the fevered supporters of the former US President, with hard-hitting and relevant lyrics such as “Mexicans and blacks and Jews, got it all figured out for you, gonna build a wall let you decide, apathy or suicide”. No holds barred there, from the lead single released from the album a few weeks ago.

The songs become a bit more melancholy with “Behind Your Walls” and into “Army of One”. The Offspring have done these kinds of songs before (see “Self Esteem” and “Gone Away”), but “Behind Your Walls” lacks the same kind of massive angst and powerful music behind it that other songs of the genre hold. “Army of One” has much more in common with typical Offspring tracks, a great up-tempo push with positive spin on the lyrics, closer to what they are renown for. “Breaking These Bones” comes with an even more morbid observation on break ups... I mean, I know Taylor Swift has made a career out of writing songs on break ups, but is an angsty song by a band with members in their mid-50's just pushing that a little too far? Maybe it is me that is just too old, and songs like these aren’t aimed at me at all (no kidding Grandpa...).
“Coming to You” is one of the older songs appearing here, having first been played live back in 2015. If you are looking for the atypical Offspring song on this album, then this is where you come to. A jiving beat, lyrics that are alternately spitting yet amusing, and all with that great vocal quality of fun yet drive.
I still don’t know how to take “We Never Have Sex Anymore”. Is it comedy or serious or pisstake? The horns section comes in throughout, giving this a completely different feel to every other song on the album – that “big band” feeling with the trombones and trumpets and clarinet and saxophone. Does anyone else remember Helloween doing a brass version of their great song “Dr Stein” for their best of album “Unarmed”? Yeah, that’s how awkward I feel about this song. It’s the pisstake song of the album, the one that comes closest to being the track you sing like “Pretty Fly for a White Guy” and “Why Don’t You Get a Job”, but without the real fun usually involved. Though teenagers may get a kick out of it.

“The Opioid Diaries” and “Hassan Chop” are the two songs that should have combined as the album closers, and are as bombastic lyrically as the opening two tracks. “The Opioid Diaries” is where the band opens up and channels their finer alt punk moments, fast and furious musically and lyrically and hard hitting at the pharmaceutical companies. This is one of the best songs on the album. And then “Hassan Chop” continues the drilling pace and flows without favour on religious wars being waged, with both sides claiming that their God helps them win. Once again, both of these songs lyrics leave nothing to the imagination, fear no favour, and give their fans listening something to consider beyond the songs themselves.
While that should have been the close of the album, it is instead completed by a piano ballad version of their hit song “Gone Away”, followed by the acoustic “Lullaby”, which acts as a reprise of the chorus of the title track. Perhaps everyone involved felt it best to finish on this quiet note after the hard core of what preceded it, but personally I feel it acts as a slight letdown to the thoughtful songs that came before it.

When I first listened to the album, I was not overly enamoured. The kind of fast paced and in-your-face attitude that the band’s music gave us on albums such as Smash and Ixnay on the Hombre has been toned down, doubtless in the main because they were 25 years ago and musicians and bands and individuals all change over that lengthy period of time. But in many ways even the energy that flowed through Americana and Conspiracy of One isn’t quite as apparent here on Let the Bad Times Roll. And as I can appreciate with all bands with such a lengthy time span, that is a similar story. There is also the problem that nine years have passed since the release of Days Go By, and with the problems that have met the band at every turn during that time, it isn’t such a surprise that things get changed up, and that maybe some of the spark gets lost in the mix. And no band can ever be condemned for wanting to try some different ideas in their song writing.

But I shouldn’t focus on the past, I should be looking at the present. And in a world that would appear ready to explode with new recorded material, all composed and recorded during a year when there was little else to do but to observe the world as it is and write about it, Let the Bad Times Roll may well be at the forefront of that movement. The fact that these songs were composed before 2020 started is interesting, because most of the subjects the songs here are about were probably more relevant last year than before that. In essence, this album actually shows that of all the political and activism problems that blew up in 2020, they all had a base well before the year of the pandemic arrived. In a current historical sense, that could be seen to be eye opening.
For all of its less exciting moments, all mostly within the middle of the album, they are bookended by some excellent ripostes by a band that, although they had never gone away, still managed to release what may yet be considered as the comeback album of the year by the time we get to December 2021. And in the current world of music, that’s not a bad thing at all.

Rating: "Because our God is righteous, and yours the one to blame". 3.5/5

1114. Blaze Bayley / War Within Me. 2021. 3.5/5

Since coming to prominence as the lead singer in the British band Wolfsbane, before going on to greater things with Iron Maiden in the mid-to-late 1990’s, Blaze Bayley has constructed his own career over the past 20+ years, dutifully curating his career to survive in times where the music business has changed so much. His production line of album releases, totalling 9 studio albums, 6 live albums and various other performances with other entities, as well as a hectic line of live shows only slowed by last year’s pandemic, has kept him at the forefront of the metal showcase. Now, Blaze has released his tenth studio album, one where he has obviously spent the year of the pandemic in an inward observation of himself given the album title, War Within Me.

Blaze and his band have got their own groove, one that has developed over the past decade especially through the album trilogy of the Infinite Entanglement series, and it comes across in spades in the opening track. The title track sets the scene for the album, opening with a great set of riffs and vocal work to set the album off on the right foot. This is followed by the excellent “303”, short sharp and sweet. It has a good sounding rhythm and back beat and is written about the story of the 303 squadron that fought in the Battle of Britain and then throughout World War II. Hey, the lyrics are no Dickinson/Smith combination, but the song is a good one.
“Warrior” and “Pull Yourself Up” are both songs from the same recording plane, with what sounds to me at least like Blaze has had some serious soul searching within himself and has dragged up some personal feelings about his own perceived weaknesses. Both musically and lyrically, “Warrior” comes across as the better song though somewhat cheesily, at least the song moves along enjoyably, whereas “Pull Yourself Up” overstates what Blaze is trying to put out there, and the staccato chorus tends to get boring after a while. “Witches Night” has similar pieces to it to some earlier Blaze songs, such as “Tenth Dimension” and “Identity”, and while I enjoy the song those similarities to those songs do haunt me every time I listen to it and has me singing the lyrics of those other songs over the top instead.
“18 Flights” is similar, in that it has those hints of Iron Maiden and Helloween in them especially in the guitar solo break, and as much as it would be preferable not to compare any of Blaze’s music to Iron Maiden, in this instance it is difficult to do. The fact that it is the music without the way the lyrics are being sung that shows similarities, rather than is the case in “Witches Night” perhaps allows it to escape from any further roasting. The second half of “18 Flights” in particular is excellent.

The trilogy of songs that follow this have their moments, and to be fair they are actually quite good and enjoyable to listen to. It’s just that... they feel as though they are missing a certain quality that could perhaps push them from being enjoyable songs into being GREAT songs! Blaze in his own way pays tribute to three trailblazers in “The Dream of Alan Turing”, “The Power of Nikola Tesla” and “The Unstoppable Stephen Hawking”, and those three songs are enjoyable but within the confines of the musical style that Blaze and his band has built for itself. And in many ways it is the rod that they have built for themselves. The basic song chords and rhythm does seem to become repeatable, and this does seem to create a similar feeling when listening to any of his last few albums. The solo sections do break out and create a more interesting part of each song (and Chris Appleton throughout is excellent), but if the basic structure of the songs is this similar then it makes it hard to find that growth and change that is preferable when listening to your favourite artists.
“Every Storm Ends” is the attempt at the epic closing track, the one that will invoke and evoke the kind of emotion that the track’s lyrics are looking to draw out. And sure, why not give it a go if you think it’s going to work. But I guess for me it doesn’t work because it is trying a bit too hard to be that specific kind of track, and sometimes by doing that it falls a bit flat. Yes, for me that’s what happens.

I don’t mind admitting I have a soft spot for Blaze. I thought the majority of his work with Iron Maiden was admirable and is still great listening. I then made sure I supported his career from the point that the two parties moved on, and continue to give albums such as Silicon Messiah, Tenth Dimension, Blood & Belief and The Man Who Would Not Die spins on regular occasions. But there is little doubt that the era since those albums does come at a price. While each album since then has some songs that are inspired, energetic and full of great riffs and vocals, there are just as many songs that seem to lack that inspiration in which to make them great rather than average. His work with Absolva the band and in particular Chris Appleton continues to bear fruit, but the pickings are probably not as great as previous years. And yet this is true of most bands. The trick is to make sur you don’t make the mistake of thinking another Silicon Messiah is just going to come around and get the most that you can from what the band is offering in the moment. On that scale of economy, much like the Infinite Entanglement trilogy, there is some great stuff here to like immensely, and some other stuff to bear through.

Rating: “Eighteen flights and fifteen shows, six countries away we go.” 3.5/5