Breathing the same vibe and atmosphere of STP’s Core and Purple…
Review by Raymond Westland
Release date: 30 March 2015
Former Stone Temple Pilots and Velvet Revolver vocalist Scott Weiland is a rather enigmatic and eccentric person. On one hand he’s a gifted singer and musician, but he’s also quite notorious for his eccentric behaviour both on and off stage, bouts of alcohol and drug abuse and his occasional feuds with his former STP bandmates. Nowadays he has a thriving solo career going with new album Blaster being his latest musical creation…
Scott’s previous solo release was very much an experimental effort, but Blaster is a remarkably cohesive album firmly entrenched in rock music country. Many tracks breathe the same vibe and atmosphere of STP’s Core and Purple albums and Velvet Revolver is never far away as well. This is especially noteworthy on ‘Hotel Rio’, ‘Amethyst’ and ‘Blue Eyes’.
However, Blaster has a much grittier approach to it, but it does lack the slick embrace that make the earlier STP such instant classics. A guitarist of the same calibre of Slash is also sorely missed, the type of player that can really bring a tune to the next level. Having said that, Blaster still manages to pack a punch, mainly on tracks like ‘Modzilla’, ‘Youthquake’ and ‘20th Century Boy’. All very solid songs, but they all miss the decisive edge to really bring them to the next level and they tell whole story about Blaster.
It’s a decent rock album, but really nothing to get truly excited about. If you want some really cutting edge, you’d better reach out for the latest albums by The Winery Dogs, Rival Sons or the Von Hertzen Brothers…
6.5 out of 10
Track listing:
- Modzilla
- Way She Moves
- Hotel Rio
- Amethyst
- White Lightning
- Blue Eyes
- Bleed Out
- Youth Quake
- Beach Pop
- Parachute
- 20th Century Boy
- Circles
