Style: hard rock
Label: Columbia
Year: 1980
Home: Boston
Members: Joe Perry ~ guitars/vocals
Ralph Mormom ~ vocals
David Hull ~ bass
Ronnie Stewart ~ drums
I've always found it interesting to listen to solo outings, because it's then that you see an influence a musician has on a band's sound. Jon Anderson & Chris Squire outside of Yes sounds like Yes, while Keith Richard & the X-Pensive Winos do reggae. On the other hand, you see what a band is like without a member. I have mixed reviews of the Plant/Page unplugged reunion as you discover how much the arrangements of Led Zeppelin were influenced by John Paul Jones & John Bonham & how much is lacking without their subtle but important touch. For 3 albums Aerosmith guitarist Joe Perry led a solo career. For those of us who grew up with the MTV era Aerosmith it's hard to visualize the band without him. It's easy to forget there's really 4 Aerosmiths - the current middle-aged rock band that is currently in hiatus with the possible loss of it's frontman, the preceding MTV era band spurred by "Janie's Got A Gun" & "Dude Looks Like A Lady", the couple albums sans Joe Perry & rhythm guitarist Brad Whitford & the "Dream On"/"Sweet Emotions" 70's era boozy garage band. If you think of MTV when you think of Aerosmith, this album will surprise you & may not be to your liking. Given it was made in 1979/80 this picks up on the sloppy & drunken Aerosmith sound that led to Perry's departure. Sloppy being the key word. For me it's musically cluttered with madly dueling guitars experimenting with stereo & the lyrics almost an after thought. Perry has the chops & in the hands of Aerosmith some of these songs might have been more successful, as there's a lot of material here. But, here he sounds like a guitarist trying to show his worth & pulling out all the trump cards as if it's his last stand. It's one large wall of guitars where the melody & rhythm messily intertwine. This album could use a little breathing room at times. But, that's one of the problems that face guitarists setting out on their own. The similar group Slash's Snakepit by the former Guns N' Roses guitarist has the same criticism. It's about showing off while the licks, grooves & song structure get lost in the flood. It's the excess of rock music taken to the limit & sounding like the bar band that every group started as & often tries to rediscover albeit with a big recording budget. Albeit, the core of every bar band is playing for the fun of it & Aerosmith has always been a fun band to hear. In that light this album gets better with repeated listenings, particularly since in repeated listens it comes out just how much it tucked into the arrangements. It may sound cluttered to me but a cornucopia has a lot of good fruits in it ... it's just up to the right person to pick through it. The proof is that the bluesy opening title track "Let The Music Do The Talking" which reappeared on Aerosmith's Done With Mirrors, which marked Perry's return along with their first successful album.
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