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Combinations can be a wonderful thing. Imagine
vanilla ice cream with chocolate syrup, coffee with cream or Guns N’ Roses with Stone
Temple Pilots. Yes, it’s true, members of two of rock’s super-groups have amalgamated
to become one fantastic ensemble. Velvet Revolver is a rock and roll machine, finely
tuned and ready to start pumping out jaw-dropping hits by the dozen.
Their
first album, Contraband, is a wonderful mixture of the hard, fast rock and roll of
the mid-eighties combined with the melodic, submerged, introspective sound of the early
nineties. “Suckertrain Blues,” “Big Machine,” “Fall to Pieces” and “Slither” are instant
favourites, but the album holds many surprises in tracks such as the haunting “You Got No
Right” and the bizarre “Loving the Alien”.
Slash does some impressive
guitar work on the album and seems to be the engine that makes this machine run. Along
with former Wasted Youth, Electric Love Hogs and Dave Navarro Band’s guitarist Dave
Kushner (the only member not from either Guns N’ Roses or Stone Temple Pilots) the pair
have created some memorable riffs.
Scott Weiland uses his troubled past as
inspiration for lyrics that deal with everything from fame to drug addiction to the
separation between personal and professional life. And it’s important to note that he
does this perhaps better than any other songwriter could.
This album is a
good start for what promises to be a centre-of-the-spotlight band for years to come.
