Slash
Slash
Produced by Eric Valentine
Dik Hayd Records
Release date: April 6, 2010

Like it or not, top hat-wearing, chain-smoking, former drug-taking ex-alcoholic but permanent guitar god Slash will always be remembered for and compared to an album he released over 20 years ago with Guns n Roses. Appetite For Destruction is one of the greatest albums of all time. It stills sounds as fresh to me as the first time I heard it, even after many years and hundreds of listens. Since Appetite thrust the sweaty, leather-covered loins of Guns n Roses into public view, Saul “˜Slash’ Hudson has released four more albums with GnR, two with Slash’s Snakepit, two with Velvet Revolver, and now comes album number ten, simply titled: Slash.

The album Slash is guitarist Slash’s first solo album. Complicated sentences aside, this is an album that boasts an array of rock gods who sing, shriek, or play over music written by Slash: Lemmy, Dave Grohl, Ozzy Osbourne, Iggy Pop to name but a few. There are also some not so godlike guests, and one I had never heard of (turns out Adam Levine is the singer of Maroon 5. Thanks Google!).

Préliminaires
Iggy Pop
Produced by Hal Cragin
Astralwerks Records
Release date: June 2, 2009

For over 40 years, James Newell Osterberg, Jr. has shrieked, crowd surfed and wriggled his wiry, leathery torso for our entertainment. His music is often ahead of its time, even providing a catalyst for at least one significant music genre and his influence continues to shape the music of his contemporaries. Iggy Pop has not released a studio album since 2003’s electrifying Skull Ring but now the ‘godfather of punk’ is back with”¦a jazz album? Quite frankly, Préliminaires is nothing like I expected.

The album opens with a French jazz song from the 1940s. “Les feuilles mortes” sounds like ‘Whats Going On’ by Marvin Gaye over Serge Gainsbourg’s ‘Je t’aime… moi non plus’ with Iggy performing the vocals in spoken French. Unfortunately the language of love sounds a little like the language of the creepy old man as he talks his way through it.

What at first listen sounds like the creepy old man in English, “I Want To Go To The Beach” is actually beautifully melancholic. Iggy sounds great with a big band orchestra which he uses to great effect on the swaggering “King Of The Dogs” and this is one of the best tracks on the album.