Aerosmith rock: good for dancing, good for driving
On March 6, 2001 Aerosmith they published “Just push play”, the thirteenth album of their career. To date it appears to be their penultimate album of unreleased songs, the last one “Music from Another Dimension!” (read the review here) which dates back to 2012. In the lines below our review of “Just push play”.
It's about time, Aerosmith are back. A few listens to “Just push play” are enough to understand that this album too (the first studio album in four years and after the glories of “Nine lives”) will invade the FM and be a hit at the box office. Excessive in everything except the fundamentals that distinguish their vintage rock, the Toxic Twins seem once again in control of their best music and, manning the production cabin together with the “Boneyard Boys”, Mark Hudson and Marti Frederiksen, launch a precise message to their purest fans who, after the cheesy “I don't want to miss a thing”, feared that the boys had taken one of those dark paths that can lead straight to a hotel in Las Vegas.
The appetizer that had recently been served to us with the first single “Jaded”, on the other hand, had been very tasty: inserted in the best AOR tradition, the piece demonstrates how not even a very clever operation (riffs and ad hoc adjustments to please everyone) manages to overshadow the immense class and cannot, above all, overshadow the ability to write great songs. Not the “usual ballad”, because it is distorted, at times oriental-like, however hard and heavy; not the usual “rocker”, despite the accelerations; but the usual Aerosmith, yes.
The good news, at this point, is that “Jaded” is not the only gem on this new CD, nor is it the best song. The attack is entrusted to an ineffable one-two: “Beyond beautiful”, tribal at the beginning with its almost ethnic percussion, then energetic, with Joe Perry's howling guitar in great evidence; and, closely, the title track which combines traditional sounds with some experimental touches: the combination of quotes from “Walk this way”, metal-rap and Hip-Hop works well, and the credit goes largely to Steven Tyler and to his vocal trademark, this time enriched by his own lingo… This is a piece that can make a packed stadium jump.
In the span of thirteen songs of an album recorded by a group that has been on the scene for twenty-five years, it is not trivial to be able to maintain a high level of quality: Aerosmith succeed and, in some cases, go further, skilfully mixing the craft with hints of electronics which, despite not being their style, don't clash at all.
The ballads? They have their say, from the excessive “Fly away from here” to the good “Avant garden”, from a “Luv lies” tailor-made for Tyler's uvula up to “Face”, sober and acoustic at the end of the album. But that's not why we're here… Besides the aforementioned first two songs and the single, it's “Sunshine” and “Outta your head” that stand out from the crowd; if the first reminds us of how melodies are in the DNA of this band which, both at the beginning of their career and still today, has shared their sympathies almost equally between the Stones and the Beatles, the second seems to be there to make us hope to see them live tomorrow night .
“Just push play” is ideal to prepare the way for Aerosmith's admission into the “Rock and roll hall of fame”: let's call it “veteran rock”, but this is a CD that rocks. Good for dancing, good for driving. I don't ask for anything better.