Monday, January 14, 2013

Melodic rock CD of the week: Vince Neil


By Stephen Kasenda

VINCE NEIL “Tattoos & Tequila” (2010)

"Tattoos and Tequila" is the third solo release from Motley Crue's singer, Vince Neil, and this time, he is backed by Slaughter's guitarist, Jeff Blando and bassist Dana Strum, while Zoltan Chaney sits on the drum stool. This is his first solo album in 15 years after the disappointing second release of "Carved In Stone". At first, this didn’t interest me as he only has two original songs on this release while the rest are only covers. But after only a single spin, this is unexpectedly enjoyable, seeing how he revamped many underrated old songs to a party in the style of Motley Crue's peak era.

The first single and title track is a decent effort but maybe his weakest one here. The second single, "Another Bad Day", which was written by Nikki Sixx and Tracii Guns is a fantastic mid-tempo commercial hard rock song, and the greatest song on the album. This song should have been his first single, in my opinion. My best picks here are Sweet's "AC/DC", Sex Pistols' "No Feelings", The Hollies' "Long Cool Woman", CCR's "Who Will Stop The Rain", Elvis Presley's "Viva Las Vegas", and ZZ Top's "Beer Drinkers & Hell Raisers". The rest are also good and no sign of weak fillers here.

"Tattoos And Tequilas" is a big surprise for me, the production is also excellent, this is just simply brilliant, and much better than Motley Crue's comeback album, "Saints of Los Angeles", which is a very average release. If you like Vince Neil's "Exposed" or Motley Crue's heyday era, this album is pretty much a combination of those two with an updated sound. Fantastic!

Read more of Stephen’s features at MetalMusicArchives.

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