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#070. Backyard Babies – Stockholm Syndrome (2003) [spotify]
Backyard Babies - Stockholm Syndrome
When I think of Swedish rock, this is who I think of. While I wasn’t really a fan of their first two albums Diesel & Power and Total 13, it was their awesome 2001 release Making Enemies is Good that really grabbed me – more on which later. This followup from 2003 does feature one really irritating (to me, anyway) song in “Pigs for Swine”, but that is far outweighed by awesome rockers like “Minus Celsius”, “Song for the Outcast”, “Year By Year”, and the splendid “Friends”. This is gritty hard rock done properly and you should be listening to it right now. SO WHY AREN’T YOU?
TOP TRACK: #2 “Minus Celsius”.
#069. Mötley Crüe – Saints of Los Angeles (2008) [spotify]
Mötley Crüe - Saints of Los Angeles
As previously intimated, 2008 was a hell of a comback year for many of the old rock dinosaurs, and this was a pretty hotly anticipated album right here. The Crüe released Red White & Crüe in 2005, another entry in a frankly annoying list of compilation albums, though this one was notable for the buzz it created with two brand new tracks – “If I Die Tomorrow” and “Sick Love Song” – which are possibly two of the best songs the band have ever made. On the back of this buzz they went off on a huge tour or two, before descending on the studio for their first properly original lineup album* since 1989′s Dr. Feelgood, so you have to ask… is it any good? Well yes it is. There are a couple of lyrical moments that stretch credibility a little (these guys are mostly in their 50s now, remember) but they still have the punch that always kept them out in front of the rest of the leather and hairspray posse, and by god Nikki Sixx can write a rock song. A couple of filler tunes, but not too many, and the good ones are really good.
*Fans will note that 1997′s Generation Swine was original lineup – yes, but many of the songs were written with and for John Corabi when Vince Neil wasn’t in the band, and so they don’t work that well as their voices live in very different registers. Thus it wasn’t properly original lineup, in my eyes. 
TOP TRACK: #5 “Saints of Los Angeles”.
#068. Paul Gilbert – Burning Organ (2002)
Paul Gilbert - Burning Organ
This album opens with not really a song, more a mission statement, called “I Like Rock”. Here are the lyrics, in full:
“I like rock. Music will never stop. Gives me electric shock. I like rock. Turn it loud. Want to go scream and shout. Get my emotions out. I like rock. I want to play guitar every day. Yeah, I want to play guitar every day. I like to crank it, crank it all the way, yeah I want to play guitar every day.”
Do you really need to know more? It’s Paul Gilbert at his bombastic best with his tongue in his cheek as always, with 13 great pop/rock tunes including a Donna Summer cover, riffing his way across the desert of shred and never coming up short.
TOP TRACK: #3 “Bliss”.
#067. Whitesnake – Good to Be Bad (2008) [spotify]
Whitesnake - Good to Be Bad
Here’s what I had to say about this one back in December 2008, in a post entitled 2008 in Rock:
Did someone say Whitesnake? Cripes. When you look at the history of Whitesnake from a guitarist’s perspective, it reads like a who’s who of hard rock. Micky Moody, Bernie Marsden, John Sykes, Adrian Vandenburg, Steve fucking Vai for Pete’s sake, Vivian Campbell, Warren DeMartini, and more. So who’re the current string-manglers? Oh, no-one special. You know. Just Reb Beach and Doug Aldrich.
And I tell you another thing – this is a brilliant album. I’d say it tops Slip of the Tongue in many ways. Coverdale seems to just get better with age (just like cheese, and you know where there’s Whitesnake, there’s cheese!), and the 11 songs on this record are all masterfully constructed globs of molten rock that you just can’t deny. Stupendous!
TOP TRACK: #2 “Can You Hear The Wind Blow”.
#066. Transmission OK – The Sky, the Stars and the Great Beyond (2000)
Transmission OK - The Sky, the Stars and the Great Beyond
Back in the early days when I was learning to play guitar, it was the heyday of the Shrapnel shredders, many of whom graduated to being a lot more than just speed merchants – Marty Friedman, Jason Becker, Tony MacAlpine, Paul Gilbert, Richie Kotzen and more – and it was quite usual to buy an issue of Guitar World and open the front cover to find either a double page Ibanez or Dimarzio advert, or a spread by Shrapnel advertising all the CDs they were currently punting. But if you bought the other magazine Guitar for the Practicing Musician, you’d often find a full page advert somewhere in it for an album by a little known guitarist with a funky name and cool hair. That guy was Blues Saraceno, and the album was Never Look Back (the magazine apparently funded and released the album). I bought it on tape, and was wowed, and still to this day I’ve never heard anyone who sounds like Blues on guitar. So when I heard that he’d replaced Richie Kotzen in Poison, I thought “Oh, cool.” Then when I heard the album they were recording had been shelved and the band was on indefinite hiatus, I though “Oh, crap.” So then when I heard that Blues had put a new band together and released an album much more focussed on songs than wailing, and he was also doing lead vocals, I thought “Oh, excellent.”
I’ll forgive you if you’ve never heard of Transmission OK, really I will. This is the only album they recorded, and while it apparently served as a springboard into the world of production for Blues, as a commercial entity I don’t think it ever troubled any charts. Nonetheless, I reckon it’s great. One thing though – don’t go out there and track this down at great expense if you’re wanting wail and shred. The first guitar solo on this album is on track 5, and it’s 4 bars long. Tasty, if brief.
TOP TRACK: #1 “Swimming”.
#065. DoubleDrive – Blue in the Face (2003) [spotify]
DoubleDrive - Blue in the Face
This splendid album was reviewed last year, on the 1st of Rocktober.
TOP TRACK: #1 “11:59″.
#064. Hardcore Superstar - Beg For It (2009) [spotify]
Hardcore Superstar - Beg For It
A second entry in the top 100 for these boys, and a cracker it is too. Original guitarist Thomas Silver left the band (apparently because he had “lost his fire and inspiration“ though Wikipedia doesn’t make it clear whether that is his wording or the band’s…) just after the recording of the previous album Dreamin’ In A Casket, prompting the band to temporarily steal Vic Zino from fellow Swede-rockers Crazy Lixx to cover six-string duties for the rest of the tour. He signed up for the vacant role, and this is the first album to feature him on das axe, and it does sound like the whole band has had a shot in the arm (and probably a shot of vodka). Top stuff this – consistent pounding rockers from start to finish, and I reckon their best album yet.
TOP TRACK: #3 “Into Debauchery”.
#063. The Killers – Hot Fuss (2004) [spotify]
The Killers - Hot Fuss
GASP! That’s not ROCK!
It kind of is, you know. But it’s like British indie-rock, sort of thing. In fact The Killers have been described as “the best British band to come out of Las Vegas”, so UK-influenced was their sound when they popped up in 2004 with this brilliant debut. At the time, I ignored them utterly, only having ears for the resurgent rawk bands like Skid Row that were coming back out of the woodwork and the newer bands that were championing the cause of tattoos, leather and whiskey like Buckcherry and Backyard Babies. It was their second album that really grabbed me, but I went back and checked out Hot Fuss, and testified. There are some brilliant tunes on here, quite apart from the massive singles “Somebody Told Me” and “Mr. Brightside” – personally I think the opener “Jenny Was A Friend Of Mine” is pick of the bunch, and the wonderfully grimy Doors-esque “Andy You’re A Star” is another highlight. Whatever you may think of Brandon Flowers and co., this album made a big hefty footprint on the pop scene in 2004, and the follow-up Sam’s Town was utterly epic, more on which later. Shame the third album Day & Age was such bollocks, really.
TOP TRACK: #1 “Jenny Was A Friend Of Mine”.
#062. DragonForce – Inhuman Rampage (2006) [spotify]
DragonForce - Inhuman Rampage
Reviewed last year on the 21st of Rocktober.
TOP TRACK: #1 “Through the Fire and Flames”.
#061. Garbage – Beautiful Garbage (2001) [spotify]
Garbage - Beautiful Garbage
I know you – you’re a smart, independent, intelligent woman, and you like Garbage. Just like me. No wait…
Anyway, I kind of liked Garbage from hearing a couple of singles (most likely “Stupid Girl” and “Only Happy When It Rains”) off the first album, and was properly impressed by the followup Version 2.0. This though, is to my mind, their best work. The punchy opener “Shut Your Mouth” and the splendid lead single “Androgyny” kick things off in style, then the Bond-theme-esque “Can’t Cry These Tears” heads off in a different direction altogether. This album actually reminds me of some of Muse‘s less histrionic stuff, and that’s meant as a very high compliment. Other highlights include “Cherry Lips (Go Baby Go)”, “Breaking Up The Girl” and “Untouchable”. This is a superb album from start to end, always melodic and interesting, and infused throughout with Shirley Manson’s huge charm and occasional sneer. This is not chick rock, this is just bloody good music.
TOP TRACK: #7 “Cherry Lips (Go Baby Go)”.