HEARD A THIRD OF SLASH’S SLASH?
There are now six songs* available online from Slash’s Slash, his forthcoming sort-of-but-not-really solo debut (as though Slash’s Snakepit wasn’t a solo band) that I care far too much about. If you include bonus tracks, that’s actually more than a full third of the album; if you don’t include bonus track, it’s (obviously) even more.
So I now feel pretty confident in saying this album won’t be horrible, even if it’s obviously never going to live up to GN’R, and features appearances by Kid Rock, Fergie, and the girl from Maroon 5.
We’ve already heard “Die by the Sword,” the first single which features vocals by Wolfmother’s Andrew Stockdale. Above you can listen to that song, as well as the instrumental track “Watch This,” which features Dave Grohl on drums and Duff McKagan on bass and which, I’m fairly certain, is going to turn out to be the best song on the album. Yes, it’s basically generic action movie music, but it’s catchy generic action movie music. I will really never get tired of listening to Dave Grohl play drums.
Meanwhile, Amazon is streaming two songs: the first is “Ghost,” the album’s opening track, which features vocals by Ian Astbury (tickle my taint if you don’t know who that is, teenage readers) and rhythm guitar by Izzy Stradlin. It’s cool to hear Slash and Stradlin together for the first time in nineteen years; this obviously isn’t anywhere as good as Appetite for Destruction, but their playing styles do seem to interact in very much the same way here – which is to say, they’re playing together without ever playing exactly the same thing, and you can tell pretty easily who’s playing what. Neat-o!
Amazon also has “Crucify the Dead,” which has vocals by Ozzy Osbourne. It basically sounds like an Ozzy song with Slash playing guitar, which is to say, it’s best Ozzy song since at least Ozzmosis (I rather like the solos in “Perry Mason” and “Old L.A. Tonight”), if not No More Tears. Still, it’s hard not to hope that Gus G. will blow this song right the fuck out of the water when Not Called Soul Sucka Anymore comes out later this year.
ESPN also has two songs…
…the first of which, “Starlight,” is a purdy ballad with Myles Kennedy on vocals. So, this is a cheesy love song. But Slash never met a cheesy love song he couldn’t play the living shit out of, and the solo here is a huge success, assuming that Slash’s intent was to make me feel ten years old and in love with Sara Wolitzky again, which I’ll assume it was, since the world revolves around me. And Kennedy is not as irritating as I thought he’d be. That being said, he’s also going to be the singer in Slash’s solo band, so when you listen to this, close your eyes and imagine him trying to sing “Crucify the Dead,” too. That should get you pretty riled up.
The second song ESPN is hosting is called “I’ll Hold On,” and has vocals by Kid Rock. Rock doesn’t rap and, honestly, doesn’t even really sound that much to me like Rock, which makes this song 200% less annoying than you’d think. It’s really generic, so I bet it’ll be a big hit if Slash releases it as a single. Slash’s guitar solo is the best reason to listen to this.
And that’s pretty much gonna be the case with this entire album, it seems. These aren’t great songs, but they’re not awful songs, either; they’re basically just reasonably catchy excuses to listen to Slash solo, which is totally fine by me. Whatever keeps him from playing with T-Pain, y’know?
In other great news, Slash’s abomination-against-Man cover of “Paradise City” with Fergie and Cypress Hill has been yanked from the super-duper deluxe edition of his solo record “due to legal reasons.” Which I assume means a certain crazy-ass Ginger got his lawyers involved and killed it dead. See? Even assholes make good decisions every once in awhile.
-AR
*Actually seven if you count this.
