Recent User Reviews
Chinese Democracy better be damn good compared to this, this album is incredible.
FULL REVIEWposted Sep 8, 2007
Critic's Review
Johnny Loftus, All Music Guide
Contraband features Slash, Duff, and Matt Sorum (as well as additional guitarist Dave Kushner) cranking out an updated version of Guns N' Roses swagger behind Scott Weiland's glammy, elastic vocals. With STP's vocalist and such a high percentage of ex-Gunners, Velvet Revolver really is a supergroup. "Went too fast I'm out of luck and I don't even give a f*ck," Weiland spits on "Do It for the Kids," and a peel from Slash's arsenal backs him up. Maturity has clearly come at a price for both parties. Weiland still mugs and sings like a florescent lizard king. But his appetite for the spotlight has somehow become more voracious even as he fights cynically against it, and longs for an escape. For their part, Slash, Duff, and Co. like stirring up their old demons -- check the explosive entrance on "Set Me Free" to get things a-tingling like the old days. But they're not running a nostalgia show, so there are new tricks and sounds, too, and plenty of choruses that shift into STP-style layering and vocal phrasing. The bass-heavy throb of "Big Machine"'s verses surges into a hard-charging '90s alt. rock chorus; "Headspace" alternates representative chunks of both bands' sounds with veteran skill; and "Superhuman" rants about illegal substances in language everyone can understand. Overall, Contraband sounds pretty much like you'd expect of such a collaboration. Lead single "Slither" is an immediate highlight, its gasoline-drinking cocaine strut staining it as the offspring of "Big Bang Baby" and "Nightrain", while the album's detours -- "Fall to Pieces", the gorgeous "Loving the Alien" -- are painted in dusty reds and browns, like idealized fever dreams of escaping to the desert with the one you love. These mediations point to the pain behind Weiland's cynical veneer, and perhaps the entire band's veteran hope for a head-clearing open space. Remember, between them they've probably seen it all. With Contraband, Velvet Revolver pull off something tidy - their music manages both hedonism and maturity.
Critic Blurbs
"Slash, the ex-Guns guitarist will focus on his work with Velvet Revolver, the band he formed with former G'n'R members Duff McKagan and Matt Sorum."
Jun 27, 2006
"Supergroups" tend to be novelties with brief shelf lives, rarely lasting past their eponymously-titled debut albums, but Velvet Revolver sound less like an ego-driven supergroup than a collection of wily veterans who are starting over and sticking to the fundamentals.
- David Powell | Jun 30, 2004
People, June 28, 2004
On Velvet Revolver's full-lenght debut, though, the band fails to recapture the glory of GNR and STP.
- Chuck Arnold | Jun 28, 2004
The lackluster result is noticeable not only in Weiland’s washed-out vocals, but in the rhythm section, where beyond his glittery solos, even Slash seems to sound murky.
- R. S. Ross | Jun 23, 2004
Velvet Revolver epitomizes the Los Angelisation of rock 'n' roll music, singing about drugs, girls and crashed cars, while front man Scott Weiland publicly (and who knows about the rest) continue to live the life.
- Tim Cashmere | Jun 22, 2004
Suffice to say, after a long build-up, yes, Velvet Revolver sounds like Guns ‘N Roses meets Stone Temple Pilots.
- Mick Stingley | Jun 22, 2004
Every song starts out as rough but once you get to the chorus you’re surprised to find its not all bad.
- Rae Gun | Jun 18, 2004
Obviously ‘Contraband’ is going to be a deep, cathartic and emotional ride, an evaluation of how the individuals in this band have gone to hell and back and how they feel about it.
- Jeremy Allen | Jun 17, 2004
Billboard Magazine, June 12, 2004
"While "Contraband" often sounds more like latter-day STP than GN'R, Velvet Revolver has crafted a promising if not spectacular debut."
- Staff | Jun 12, 2004
Contraband is, in fact, tighter and hotter in construction and attack than we had any right to expect from a band that started out auditioning vocalists while being filmed for a VH1 reality show.
- David Fricke | Jun 8, 2004
It rocks in a way that restores faith and replenishes the hope that all the crap on the radio is not what rock has somehow been allowed to degrade into.
- Peter Kimmich | Jun 1, 2004
So no, Contraband isn't the rock masterpiece that patient fans of Appetite for Destruction might have been hoping for -- but then this kind of collaboration rarely produces such a result.
- Kevin Forest Moreau | Jul 26, 2008
There are riffs a-plenty, punkish attitude in abundance and choruses that could level a small building.
- Vik Bansal |
Velvet Revolver sounds like a hungover bar band playing catch-up, wading through tired blues licks and meaningless grunge imagery on tracks like "Slither" and "Big Machine."
