Sebastian Bach seemed to be headed towards becoming the answer
\nto a question in “Trivial Pursuit.” After his departure from the
\nband Skid Row, both Bach and his bandmates struggled to find their
\nown musical identities – only to be greeted with indifference
\nthanks to a changing musical scene.<\/p>\n
Now, in the midst of rumors about his own musical future, Bach
\ngathers a group of musical partners in crime to form Sebastian Bach
\n& Friends. Combining a mixture of new studio tracks and a
\nre-hash of Skid Row songs recorded live in Japan,
\nBring ‘Em Bach Alive!<\/i> tries to recapture the glory days of
\nthe past.<\/p>\n
Bach’s vocals have deepened a bit, giving the live material a
\nmore mature sound – and, dare I say it, a little more credibility.
\nThat said, though, I question how long Bach will be able to sing a
\nsong like “Youth Gone Wild” without it becoming a self-parody, like
\nThe Who singing, “Hope I die before I get old.”<\/p>\n
The personnel on this disc flips a little bit between the studio
\nband and the live act. Anton Fig handles the drum work in the
\nstudio, while Mark “BAMBAM” McConnell smacks the skins in the live
\nset. Otherwise, the group is pretty stable with bassist Larry (why
\ndo I have a
\nNewhart<\/i> sketch running in my head all of a sudden?) and
\nguitarists Jimmy Flemion and Richie Scarlet. (Oh, friendly word of
\nadvice: Lose those ridiculous fucking costumes. Christ, the guy
\ndressed as “The Angel”… that looks like a cross between Liberace
\nand Kiss. And, Sebastian, I didn’t realize people still could make
\na suit out of Reynolds Wrap. ‘Nuff said.)<\/p>\n
The five new tracks stay pretty much in the musical vein you’d
\nexpect from Bach, although they’re not that bad. Tracks like “Done
\nBleeding,” “Blasphemer” and “Counterpunch” all are pretty enjoyable
\nin their own guilty-pleasure way. Only “Superstar, Superjerk,
\nSupertears” is a superwaste – and I don’t know why, but I was a bit
\ndisappointed to hear “Rock ‘N’ Roll” was an original, not a cover
\nof the Led Zeppelin track.<\/p>\n
Regarding the live set, if someone were to play this without
\ntelling you who it was, chances are you’d guess you were listening
\nto Skid Row. While it’s been years since I dug any of my Skid Row
\nalbums out of the dusty halls of the Pierce Memorial Archives, I’m
\nnow intrigued enough to go back and listen to
\nSlave To The Grind<\/i> again. Especially noteworthy is the
\nmedley of “Monkey Business” and Blue Oyster Cult’s “Godzilla”, an
\nappropriate song for the location of the concert – and a damned
\nfine performance of it as well.<\/p>\n
While
\nBring ‘Em Bach Alive!<\/i> is a decent enough set, part of me
\nhopes that this disc represents Bach closing a chapter of his
\nmusical life and the full-fledged start of a solo career. I
\nunderstand he’ll probably always have to do a few Skid Row songs in
\nhis repertoire, but it would be nice to hear him come out with a
\nset that leans more heavily on new material, even if that concept
\nscares away some fans. It’s called “musical growth” – and you can
\nhear it happening on a few of the new tracks.<\/p>\n
\nBring ‘Em Bach Alive!<\/i> is the kind of disc that fans of late
\n’80s\/early ’90s metal will be drooling over, especially when
\nhearing one of the musical heroes like Bach with a more
\nworld-travelled voice. And it is an interesting slice of history to
\nlisten to – but I’m still crossing my fingers that Bach is planning
\nto start writing a new chapter in the book.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":25177,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"tags":[],"artist":[6198],"rating":[5615],"class_list":["post-36382","review","type-review","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","artist-sebastian-bach-friends","rating-rating-b"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/36382","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/review"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=36382"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/36382\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/25177"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=36382"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=36382"},{"taxonomy":"artist","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/artist?post=36382"},{"taxonomy":"rating","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rating?post=36382"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}