Apocalyptic Love

When former Guns N’ Roses/Velvet Revolver guitar hero Slash (real name Saul Hudson) released his first “solo” studio album in 2010, it featured a range of musicians from Ozzy Osbourne to Fergie, Motorhead’s Lemmy to Iggy Pop, and even Foo Fighters’ Dave Grohl on drums. Whilst demonstrating the variety of his talents, the album lacked any real coherent structure. When the axeman announced that his second album would feature one sole vocalist – Alter Bridge singer Myles Kennedy, who had met Slash while recording for two of the previous album’s tracks – it would have been unwise to have betted against it being anything but a resounding success, especially after the explosive UK tour the pair embarked on last summer.

Apocalyptic Love opens with a promising title track. It’s got that classic hard rock sound, but all the same sounds fresh, with more groove than you might expect. It’s followed up by One Last Thrill, a more straightforward bluesy track which harks back to the raw sound of AC/DC’s seventies records. As a slight change of pace, arguably the album’s two most melodic songs – radio singles Standing in the Sun and You’re a Lie – round off the beginning of the album, demonstrating a mix between Velvet Revolver’s modern hard rock sleaze and the post-grunge influenced soaring vocals you would expect from an Alter Bridge record.

Tracks 5 and 7, No More Heroes and We Will Roam, continue the theme of those songs, albeit with a more relaxed, toned-down approach. This is in stark contrast to track 6, Halo, a track so close to heavy metal its opening riffs takes you back a bit. The infectious chorus is a necessity to remind you that you’re listening to a Slash album, if nothing else.

Most great albums have a special, defining moment, which makes you stop still and just listen. Anastasia, the eighth track on the record, does this. Six minute and seven seconds of AOR-esque mastery, it’s opening riff brings back memories of GNR’s Sweet Child o’ Mine, and the remaining journey of reflection on days gone by we are taken on by both the guitar work and the vocals rings true of the days tracks like November Rain were released. I would go as far as to say that this is one of the best classic rock-style tracks released in years – if you’re unsure of this claim, give the track a listen. Then tell me it’s not. I double dare you.

Later album highlights include the cocky, rhythmic swing of Bad Rain and the frenetic, heavy closer Shots Fired, which, while reminiscent of some of the Myles-penned Alter Bridge tracks lyrically, is a powerful crossover hard rocker in a musical sense; it is a song that will impress fans of post-grunge, heavy metal and classic rock. The only weak spots on the album are provided by Not For Me and Far & Away, two downtrodden ballads that disrupt the album’s pace in the wrong places (though the latter does contain a fantastic guitar solo if you make it through to the last minute or so of the track).

So why listen to Apocalyptic Love? It’s melodic yet hard-hitting, musically ambitious yet coherent; it’s suitable for the modern listener, yet recalls the days when hard rock acts topped the charts and filled stadiums around the world on a daily basis. It hasn’t created a new sub-genre of rock music, but it has carved its own niche. Give Apocalyptic Love a chance. You won’t regret it.

**MP3:** ‘Anastasia’, ‘Shots Fired’
**Similar to:** Velvet Revolver, Alter Bridge