I don’t remember exactly how or when I got into Dokken; I think
it was because I heard their music played on the brokered heavy
metal station so much that I finally relelnted and bought their
albums at the used record store. But after their live disc
Beast From the East, Dokken seemed to fade into the annals
of hard rock history.
Don Dokken and crew finally reunited a few years ago, apparently
putting all bad blood behind them for a while. However, after their
last studio effort
Shadowlife (which got reamed on these pages – relax, I
didn’t write the review), guitarist extraordinaire George Lynch
bolted to restart his solo career and side band Lynch Mob. How
would a band like Dokken replace such an intregal part of their
sound.
The answer might have surprised a few people: enter Reb Beach,
formerly of Winger. Well, snicker all you want, ’cause the style of
music Dokken plays on their latest album
Erase The Slate seems to be the key that unlocked the doors
for Beach to really cut loose and shred. And while I’ll freely
admit I haven’t followed Dokken for some time – hell, I just bought
a used copy of
Shadowlife the other day – I have to admit, this disc
impressed me.
Okay, so you’re still not convinced that Beach is the correct
fit for Dokken. All you have to do, my friend, is slam this disc in
the player and crank up the title track. One listen to the guitar
solo that Beach wrings out of his six-string, you just might be
asking yourself, “George
who?”
Granted, Dokken gets off to a little bit of a slow start with
“Erase The Slate” and “Change The World”; if anything, these cuts
show that Dokken’s voice is as strong today as it was in the
mid-’80s, while the band has rarely sounded as tight. Once you get
to cuts like “Maddest Hatter” and “Shattered,” things really start
to click for the band, and there’s no looking back from there
on.
After an interesting choice of cover songs – ever expect to hear
a metal band cover Harry Nilsson’s “One”? –
Erase The Slate truly makes its mark with tracks like “Who
Believes,” “Haunted Lullabye” and “Crazy Mary Goes Round,” the
latter track featuring vocals form drummer Wild Mick Brown. It’s an
interesting twist, and it’s one that works.
Now, if you weren’t that big of a Dokken fan in their glory
days, chances are
Erase The Slate won’t do much to win you over. (Then again,
stranger things have been known to happen.) But even if you were a
casual fan of the band as I would classify myself, you can’t help
but be impressed with what Dokken has created. They went into this
disc probably knowing that they wouldn’t be topping the Billboard
charts, but they wanted to create the best possible music – if only
for themselves. Something tells me that they’ll end up sharing
these songs with more people than they could imagine right now.
Erase The Slate is a return to form for Dokken that should
help to strengthen the argument for returning this band to the
spotlight.
