Aerosmith

While the Aerosmith of the 1980s competed with incredible sources of musical depth and innovation such as, you know, hair metal, the Aerosmith of the 1970s existed between prog, blues and art rock, and sometimes incorporated all three. I wish it were so on their debut album, but it's only a glimmer of the greatness that came to them later. Steven Tyler admitted he was deliberately underplaying his singing and it shows, worsened by uninspired production and drab dynamics which do them no favours; some of these half-baked tracks still show up in their live sets such as "One Way Street," which is seven minutes of trying to find the "skip" button. But there are two tracks in particular that tell us this band is capable of more, and those are "Mama Kin" (the Guns N Roses cover is good, but the original is better), which mixes bluesy rock with a good riff and a fun sax solo, and of course the classic ballad "Dream On," full of echo, verve and splendour on which it appears all of their production budget was blown based on the other tracks. Worth picking up for fans, but the casual interest will want to wait until Toys In The Attic, against which all Aerosmith and hard rock albums in general are measured. (Content: S-bomb, some drug references.)

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