Listening to Jackson Taylor’s Which Way Is Up, one has to wonder if the hell-raising country rocker has reached a crossroads.
Granted, he’s always had more traditional tunes that seem to get overlooked in favor of his party anthems, but this album feels a little different. There are still plenty of drinking and partying songs among the eight tracks, but this seems to be a more subdued Jackson Taylor, not quite as raucous and with fewer middle fingers flying.
The difference is felt immediately. Album opener “Another Bottle Goes Down” could easily have been a classic outlaw country number from the 1970s. Taylor adopts a deeper vocal on the song, and while it is about drinking, it’s not exactly a wild party tune. That same feeling is all over “Foolin’ Around,” which sounds so much like a classic track that I thought on first listen it was perhaps a modified cover of a classic tune I wasn’t familiar with. That’s not the case, but it could be.
After hearing Joey Belladonna’s cringe-inducing vocals on Anthrax’s version of Rush’s “Anthem,” I didn’t have much hope for this EP of covers from the thrashers, especially considering the rest of the lineup included covers of Cheap Trick, Journey and Boston.
The good news is that “Anthem” is far and away the worst thing on this record. The bad news is that it’s still a mixed bag.
For the most part, this is hard rock karaoke. Anthrax doesn’t take any chances with any of the songs here. They don’t play them in their own style or try to do anything different with them. They deliver note-for-note renditions of the originals with maybe a little extra crunch here or there, but not much else.
Ever ask yourself what Al Jourgensen, main man of industrial metal pioneers Ministry, would sound like if he decided to go country? Yeah, me either.
Sadly, Jourgensen has decided to answer that question for us with his side project Buck Satan and the 666 Shooters, which also includes Rick Nielsen (Cheap Trick), Tony Campos (Static-X) and Mke Scaccia (Ministry/Rigor Mortis).
You can tell by the band name that Bikers Welcome Ladies Drink Free, out on AFM Records, isn’t exactly a serious country project. Unfortunately, it doesn’t really work as humor and ends up sounding more like the joke band playing in the corner of a dimly lit dive bar in a Rob Zombie horror flick. Granted, that could have been interesting if done right. This isn’t.
To hold fans of the “Guitar Hero” series over until the fourth installment arrives this fall, Activision delivers what could be the first in a series of artist-based titles, “Guitar Hero: Aerosmith.” (Rumor has it that “Guitar Hero: Metallica” is already in the works for a 2009 release).
While it’s still more of an expansion pack for “Guitar Hero III” than a new game, “Guitar Hero: Aerosmith” does manage to bring a few new twists to the table, unlike last years “Guitar Hero Rocks the ’80s.” While the game follows the basic pattern and rules of “GH III,” in career mode players must first perform two songs as an opening band before they unlock Aerosmith for that level and get to rock out on the band’s classic tunes.
The opening band numbers include classic songs from bands like Cheap Trick, Ted Nugent, Joan Jett, The Clash, Run DMC and more, all hand-picked by the members of Aerosmith. Most of them are the actual songs, rather than the covers that have dominated past installments of the game (though there are still four or five of those.) Once you get past those, there are two Aerosmith tunes and an encore to unlock a video of the band discussing its career and move to the next level.
The venues here are integral to Aerosmith’s history from the high school where they played their first gig, to Max’s Kansas City where they were discovered to the Orpheum Theatre where they reunited in the early 1980s to the Rock ‘n’ Roll Hall of Fame and halftime of “the big game.”
Perhaps the best part of this game is the playlist in career mode. Notably absent are overrated and oversaturated tunes like “I Don’t Want to Miss a Thing,” “Janie’s Got a Gun,” “Dude (Looks Like a Lady)” and the “CryinAmazaCrazy” trilogy. Instead, we get some underappreciated gems from the catalogue, like “Movin’ Out,” “No Surprize,” “Uncle Salty,” “Nobody’s Fault” (my personal Aerosmith fave) and the Joe Perry vocal on “Bright Light Fright.” I was disappointed in the decision to use the Run DMC version of “Walk This Way,” but the real version is included as an unlockable extra and that’s a minor quibble for a set list that’s heavy on hard-rocking classics and light on the newer hits.
All in all “Guitar Hero: Aerosmith” is a short, but enjoyable add-on that should whet your appetite for “Guitar Hero World Tour,” due out just in time for Christmas, of course. More of these artist-based titles would be welcome.
