Aerosmith, Done With Mirrors

This was supposed to be their comeback album, proving they could be clean and still rock, and yet it still sounds like they're smoking something. And it's not the good stuff. The flat, unoriginal and uncompelling riffs are matched inexpertly by similarly flat production and the dynamic range of a nursing home after the medication gets handed out. Standout tracks for the wrong reasons include the asymmetric beat in "Let The Music Do The Talking" which I think they believed would be innovative but just comes off as annoying, Steven Tyler's limp and anaemic delivery on "The Reason A Dog" something or other, and "The Hop" which just drags and drags and drags. This otherwise dumpster fire of an album is saved from complete failure only by the name of the track "My Fist Your Face" which makes an entertaining epithet for bar mitzvahs, church services and music critics. The CD and tape versions add the final track "Darkness" which has some rather interesting harmonic contrasts and an almost progressive rock throwback feel, a bafflingly high quality contrast against the overwhelming mediocrity of the rest of the album, and single-handedly prevents my first poop rating ever. (Content: mild profanity.)

🌟

Aerosmith, Toys In The Attic

I don't think the now more (they could hardly have been less) mature and, at least comparatively, refined incarnation of Aerosmith would agree, but ... they really need to get back on drugs. Because those drugs brought us this, even finer than Rocks (oh, the irony), more developed than Walk The Line, and, well, better than just about every other album they've done, stoned or sober. Of course, the drugs are what made the later '70s albums worse, because they always do, but at least for a time the cocaine made incredible magic. There's the breezy nonsense of "Walk This Way," still unequaled after all these years despite Run-DMC's iconic hiphop refurb; snarky, raunchy blues in the thinly disguised double entendre "Big Ten Inch Record," a surprisingly weighty yet brisk ballad on child abuse in "Uncle Salty" and even some soulful, if admittedly silly, moments in "You See Me Crying," my favourite guilty pleasure on the whole album for its syrupy hokiness. Plus, yes, plenty of heavy cut-it-with-a-razor-blade rock, running all the way from the title track to "Adam's Apple" to concert favourites like "Sweet Emotion" and "Round and Round," with the blase "No More No More" being the only weak cut in an album of sheer, unadulterated, white clouds of bliss. I hope it's obvious how fully in my cheek my tongue is saying this, but look at what a couple well-placed lines will do for your creative output. If being drugged out would have prevented them from releasing Just Push Play, I say bring back the mirrors. The CD reissue adds "Dream On" as a bonus track, a tremendous mitzvah, because then you don't need to buy that other unmentionable album just to get their first great single. It was the grass that was responsible for the rest of that dreck, you see. (Content: adult themes, a couple mild expletives.)

🌟🌟🌟🌟🌟

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.)

🌟🌟