Odds and Ends

Each week I use this space to post some mini-reviews, cool tracks, random thoughts, neat news, or whatever else I damn well please.

Looks like I am not the only one disappointed with the new one from The Cars. See more reviews here.

Review: Raining Jane “Paper Nest” EP (2008)
Raining Jane is comprised of four women creating high quality organic folk pop. Exquisite songwriting, vivid imagery, and harmonies that remind me of what the Bangles might have sounded like if they were folkier. Check them out if you like Dar Williams, Melissa Etheridge, or Sarah McLachlan. They are working on their next record in the midst of collaborating with Jason Mraz and opening for Sara Bareilles.

Surprise of the week:
The latest from Sixx A.M. is killer – one of the best modern hard rock records so far this year. Full review coming soon.

Can’t miss this:
Goo Goo Dolls John Rzeznik performs with Daryl Hall on the latest installment of “Live From Daryl’s House”. Check out the news here.

Live Whitesnake double-album and DVD package coming June 7
CD1 : Slip Of The Tongue; Slide It In; Judgement Day; Slow An Easy; Kitten’s Got Claws; Adagio For Strato; Flying Dutchman Boogie; Is This Love; Cheap An’ Nasty; Crying In The Rain (featuring Tommy Aldridge Drum Solo).
CD2: Fool For Your Loving; For The Love Of God; The Audience Is Listening; Here I Go Again
Bad Boys; Ain’t No Love In The Heart Of The City; Still Of The Night.
DVD: Slip Of The Tongue; Slide It In; Judgement Day; Slow An Easy; Kitten’s Got Claws; Adagio For Strato; Flying Dutchman Boogie; Is This Love; Cheap An’ Nasty; Crying In The Rain (Featuring Tommy Aldridge Drum Solo); Fool For Your Loving; For The Love Of God; The Audience Is Listening; Here I Go Again; Bad Boys; Ain’t No Love In The Heart Of The City; Still Of The Night.

Random iPOD song of the week:
Slaughter “Street of Broken Hearts” from their sophomore release “The Wild Life”

Classic melodic rock CD of the week

By Stephen Kasenda

SLAUGHTER “The Wild Life” (1992)

"The Wild Life" saw daylight in 1992, when most 80s bands began to suffer as the grunge wave started sweeping in. Slaughter managed to produce several hit singles and hit gold status, but after this album everything went sour commercially for them. Ironically, the next release, “Fear No Evil”, in my opinion, is their peak of creativity. This album showed a rich variety of musical perspectives, from those mandatory emotional-fueled ballads, to psychedelic hard rock, to groovy melodic rock, to early 80s heavy metal.

"Reach For The Sky" and "Out For Love" are good openers, but the title track steals the show. That first single has a blasting chorus and Blas Elias pumped up the groove nicely. "Dance For Me Baby", with its naughty Van Halen-ized beat, and "Old Man" with its Aerosmith flair, are great examples of Slaughter taking on some past references. "Days Gone By", "Real Love", and "Streets of Broken Hearts" are all sensational ballads - hard to top them all and they remain timeless classics to this day. I always found the songs to be very inspiring and adorable.

At the verge of glam's decadence, Slaughter still delivered a classy effort. This is their second best album of all time after "Fear No Evil", and together with the debut, all three are essential must buys for glam fans.

Read more of Stephen’s features at MetalMusicArchives.

Re-live "The Wild Life":

Review: Slaughter "Fear No Evil"

How the mighty fall. It never ceases to amaze me how musical genres come and go; like a vast empire, they undergo a major collapse just after the height of power. Such is the story with the late great hairbands of the late 80s and early 90s. It is a guilty pleasure of mine to investigate some of the releases these former multi-platinum sellers made after the 15th minute expired.

Which brings us to Slaughter's 1995 release (their third proper release), "Fear No Evil." The CD was put out on CMC International, which for a time, was where hairbands went after their majors dropped them for some dirty mopey band from a dreary wet city. You have to admire the Slaughter boys for sticking to their guns here and delivering a record that did not cater to the grunge fad, but gave fans exactly what they wanted: a gang chorus, saying "ass" a couple times, lyrics a four year could understand, cowbell, more cowbell, and silly little instrumental fillers. What is the deal with those anyway? There are TWO of these wastes of time on this record, making it effectively only a 10 track CD, not 12.

So this record is true to their hairband "roots" if you will and it sounds like 1988 all over again. Actually, the record is a little harder and less pop oriented than their first two CDs. "Searchin'" jams with a catchy hook, and the sappy ballad "It'll Be Alright" is a Beatlesque gem. "Outta My Head" is classic Slaughter, and the ironically titled "Yesterday's Gone" is another cut worth checking out.

iPOD-worthy: 3, 4, 9, 11

Slaughter - official site.

Check out the video for "Searchin'":