IZZY STRADLIN Miami (2007)
21 September 2007
Summertime. Heat. Sloth and fatigue. A fly creeps indifferently on the grimy desk, my sweaty back leans on the wooden chair, and Izzy Stradlin pulls the strings at ease and refrains garage rockandroll with cynic impartiality from the speakers of the PC.
If you feel warm and lazy to move your eyelids, imagine what it’s like in Miami! Most reasonably this is the name of the new album by the former Guns N’ Roses guitarist. The tunes bear the cocky languid spirit of the torrid American megapolis - beaches, surfers, perky and unnaturally blond chicks with huge false tits, hot, moist nights liquor, rumba, flashy mobsters, ghettos and tons of subculture inspiration for a rock’n’roll musician.
Right with the first track (dedicated to Tijuana and the drunken banditos) it gets clear what part of the creative core of Guns Izzy has been before kickin’ himself out of the band. The songs are insolent, indifferent and presented with ease and unconcern. How do they sound? Well, like typical American melodies of the glitzy resort states, played with guitar, concertina, piano, bass and drums. Just like Izzy’s previous solo attempts, but without the country elements.
Izzy sings like he always did - satisfactorily for his unpretentious music and without giving a fuck for tendencies, TV and external noise. While listening to song like “JR’s Song” and “Waiting”, one could get with the impression that time has stopped in the late 80’s when glam was fading and grunge was not born yet.
Only two tracks run in a different nuance. The first is the extended in ten minutes “Party Cloudy”, which is like it has been squeezed out of the last blues shades of ZZ Top in the 80’s, the reggae of Eddy Grant and the semi-psychedelic alcohol trips of The Doors. The second one is the balladic and calm “Everything’s Alright”, which seems to console you at the end of the night, telling you not to worry that you have boozed all your money as long as the glass is full and the legs are obedient. And to have someone to rely on...
“Miami” comes out and will remain almost unnoticed, but Izzy doesn’t seem to care. Otherwise he wouldn’t record music that sounds like staring back at the rock music 20 years ago through a bottle of Jack Daniel’s with cigarette ends in it, stirred with a battered old Gibson in a heated by the southern swelter garage…
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- 1The Emptiness Machine
LINKIN PARK - 2A Fragile Thing
THE CURE - 3The Piper's Call
DAVID GILMOUR - 4Queen of What Might Have Been
EAGLE POST - 5New Waters
ODD CREW
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