Slash
- Slash
- Roadrunner/Universal
It's as if Slash told Axl Rose that he wasn't needed - that if the top-hatted guitarist wanted to make an album of his own there would be singers lining up a dozen deep, each ready to shred their left vocal chord in aid of the former Guns n' Roses riff inventor. And so Slash's first-ever solo album has guests galore, even the Black Eyed Peas' Fergie, who is all wail and swagger on Beautiful Dangerous, the most Axl-ready cut on a brawny disc of devil-horn-hand-gesture rock. On the giddy and glammy We're All Gonna Die, a fatalistic Iggy Pop suggests we "get high, pee on the ground and jump around." And Motorhead's Lemmy, who's been known to do those three things, carries a mean scalpel on Doctor Alibi. A lot of it's formulaic, which makes me wish for some more of the power-trio instrumental stuff of Watch This (with Dave Grohl on drums and ex-GNR bassist Duff McKagan). The stranglehold guitar solo here is so tight that a singer would only get in the way - and Slash sure knows all about that.