Review: Adler, "Back from the Dead"

Drummer Steven Adler has built a fair bit of legend in hard rock circles, but for all the wrong reasons. Adler, you may recall, was the guy who was kicked out of Guns n’ Roses because of his drug problem. That takes some real effort.

All these years later, Adler, by all accounts, has his act cleaned up and his life back under control. He’s teamed up with three younger musicians who appear to be cut from the cloth of modern rock radio in hopes of building some legend in a different way with his new outfit Adler.

Vocalist Jack Bunton and guitarist Lonny Paul wrote most of the material for the record, which was co-produced by Adler and Dokken bassist Jeff Pilson. The combination works just as you hope it would, producing songs that could put the band on modern rock radio, but still have some ties to Adler’s glitzy 1980s hard-rock past.

Review: T&N, "Slave to the Empire"

What do you get when you mix the three original members of Dokken who were not named Don Dokken with drummer Brian Tichy and guest shots from a few of the best singers in the hard rock realm? A surprisingly solid and vibrant record.

Guitarist George Lynch and bassist/vocalist Jeff Pilson originally began writing the songs on Slave to the Empire as a new project for Lynch’s band Lynch Mob, but realized they weren’t quite right for it. They eventually recorded the seven original tracks on this record with Tichy, who was the one that suggested a reunion with Dokken drummer Mick Brown and a project in the vein of the Black Sabbath offshoot Heaven and Hell. The three former bandmates seized on the idea, calling themselves Tooth and Nail, a name that for legal reasons had to be shortened to T&N.