Style: hard rock, heavy metal, industrial, punk, country
Label: SPV/Steamhammer
Year: 2006
Home: n/a
Members: Johnny Solinger ~ vocals
Scotti Hill, Dave "The Snake" Sabo ~ guitars/b. vocals
Rachel Bolan ~ bass/vocals
Dave Gara ~ drums/b. vocals
Additional: Rachel Hagen ~ b. vocals
"Jelly Roll" Johnson ~ harmonica
In honor of the death of Johnny Solinger I reviewed his debut album with Skid Row, Thickskin. I criticized it for its heavy alt-rock & post-grunge style, but also confessed I liked his singing & it wasn't a bad album once the shock wore off. I also said 2000's alt-rock is not my thing. Part of that is because after graduating college in 2001 I spent 4 years abroad starting in 2002, so I was largely out of the music scene & a total jazz junkie for those years. I confess I went to college with Death Cab For Cutie, but they were the band that played in a friend's garage for $5 a show & I didn't see them as anything special when I came back to the States. Meh. While bands like Creed were also meh. Is there even new music from the 2000's? I can't think of any, other than bands that already existed. Yet, I've been listening to Thickskin after publishing my review & it just gets better with age. Outside of the one clunker in the unnecessary update of "I Remember You", called "I Remember You Too", there's just enough metal to offset the alt-rock & Solinger is great, not to mention he's not trying to be Baz. So, I decided to check out his next album with Skid Row, Revolutions Per Minute. First, these guys need help on album titles. Just sayin'. Thickskin is called by many critics their worst album. I simply call it anything but Skid Row. Forget its Skid Row & its great, though a bit imitative & lacking a its own sound. Compare it to Skid Row & you will run away in fear, thus in the review I renamed the band as Not Skid Row. Revolutions Per Minute doesn't rate much better when I looked at reviews of it. So, I'm approaching this album seeing it as Not Skid Row. That's the band. Skid Row is a hair band with hints of metal & a powerhouse singer & eternal wild boy named Sebastian Bach,. who deserve all the accolades. Not Skid Row is an alt-rock band with hints of metal featuring ruff & gutsy vocalist Johnny Solinger, who are under-rated. So, how does Not Skid Row do on their ... second ... outing? Oh my god! Oh my god! I don't mean that as in, this is freakin' amazin', but as in, God take me now & erase my memory of these last moments of my life, please! Before I detail this disaster, I want to mention I blame bassist Rachel Bolan. On the previous albums him & guitarist Dave "The Snake" Sabo are the primary songwriters, so much of the crafting of the sound I put on their shoulders. I don't know what happened, but this is all him, outside of the cover of the Alarm's "Strength". That is the only track worth hearing, actually. Sabo has 2 tracks, versus his normal most of the album, while bassist Scotti Hill turns him his normal single contribution. Solinger has no writing credits. So, this is all on Bolan & I'd like to know more about him, to understand this train wreck. That is, if I have time before God grants me peace. I highly recommend he never be allowed to work alone again & use the name Skid Row at the same time. God, have mercy on his soul, or the Devil have fun! Seeing how fans hated the new alt-rock sound of Thickskin, this album feels like Bolan made a list of trending music styles & decided to hit them all to win back old fans & bring in new ones. Yet, Thickskin failed because it re-invented the band, so the key now is not to re-invent the band yet again. Maybe the re-invention musically failed, but you've now re-invented the band as an alt-rock group, so stick with that sound. Develop it out. Make it your own. Show the old fans this isn't just a cash grab. Show the new fans that Skid Row is more than a has-been '80's band. Of course, advice in hindsight is useless, but how did anyone think this new direction was good? On Thickskin the band should have gone with their metal roots, versus going to post-grunge which nobody wanted, & I think that would have kept old fans. Bolan obviously felt that way in hindsight as the metal returns on this new album. Yet instead of just turning back to the clock to Slave To The Grind he has to re-invent the band again & take things in another direction. Instead of giving old fans what they want, he's still giving them nothing familiar while aiming for new fans by tapping into new styles. Its obvious he has no clue who his fan base is or what they went, as he re-invents the band not just once, but three times on this album! This album has 3 distinct personalities! No joke. If you're a fan of one style, you might not like the other styles so you're not going to become a fan. While if you're an old fan, this is even farther from the Skid Row that you know, so you're probably done with the band completely or turning to Baz's solo albums. First, there's industrial music, with Solinger wasting his vocal talents by screaming & sounding at times like Marilyn Manson. Its metal, but not the metal Skid Row fans were likely looking for, & other bands are doing this style of music better. Most of the album takes a more slamming punk approach. I was reminded at times of Duff McKagan's solo stuff, even lyrically with "Another Dick In The System". This is not a compliment. I don't think the old fans were looking for their band to become post-grunge & then a punk band. I'm 100% sure they weren't looking for that. Then there is the 3 country songs in "When God Can't Wait", "You Lie" & "You Lie (The Cornfed Mix)." These songs include acoustic guitars, steel slide guitar, stereotypical twangy vocals & even harmonica. If that isn't bad enough, they transition into a punk-country or alt-country flavor. So, technically this album has 4 styles! So, Not Skid Row has now decided to become a light weight Marilyn Manson & the Old 97's! My head is dizzy trying to write this. My ears have fallen off. I'm still waiting on you, God, where are you? As I wrote in my previous review, I do have to give the guys credit for adopting numerous styles with amazing accuracy, but now that they've shown off, its time to put the toys away & grow up. Wow, I know Solinger has done some country music, but do that with your non-Skid Row albums. Did they see Skid Row, I mean Not Skid Row, as the newest country band? Or, is this planning a slow re-invention as punk-country band soon to be touring with Wilco? Is this a joke, like when Danger Danger ended their second album with a rap song they later disowned? Yet, I have more to say in these final minutes of life, before my suffering ends, hopefully it ends. Solinger is a great singer. Yet, many of these songs sound like they were written for Bach, or another singer, or a collection of singers. He's all over the place with styles & special effects, like the band has no clue what to do with him or is pretending they still have Baz, or just not Solinger. He was great with the alt-rock on Thickskin, but sounds totally wrong for the punk rock. He puts his heart into it, no questions asked, but his personality is completely snuffed out. You wouldn't know who this is if your life depended on it. As for what he is singing, I can honestly say I don't remember Skid Row, or Not Skid Row, being this angry. For example, the opener "Disease" with "I think I've had enough / I've felt your disease" or "Pulling My Heart Out From Under Me" has "I've tied myself to the railroad tracks / you've refused my point of view", while "Strength" has "Give me strength / give me something to live for / I need it now ... someone give me a telephone call / I need to hear a human sound / someone open a door / I need to get out of this place." I don't think there's anything happy on this album. No, there is actually, in one really bad satire that should have been left as a B-side or outtake. I'm speaking of "White Trash", with the lines: "I'm not human / I'm special / I want to be white trash / & sit around on my fat ass / so many hours in the day / to piss my life away." What were they thinking? Oh, that's right, they weren't. As St. Peter is hopefully dialing up my number now, I will say in closing, I feel sorry for anyone who bought this catastrophe & I feel sorry for Skid Row fans or Not Skid Row fans looking for more of the same of Thickskin. I'm also sorry for new drummer Dave Gara. Its nice he got a big gig, but this is embarrassing. I recommend Thickskin, even more after this personality crisis. As for this, I not just highly don't recommend it, but I've decided this is Not Skid Row, but actually a third band named Not Not Skid Row with their country band counterpart called Skid Row On The Range. R.I.P. Skid Row & Not Skid Row. It was nice knowing you. I'm so sorry, Johnny, that this is your legacy. Rest in peace.
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