There are things in our past which we try desperately to put
\nbehind us. That’s why it’s not uncommon to see such things as high
\nschool yearbooks, old photos and outdated clothes buried deep
\nwithin our garages — only to be discovered at an inopportune
\nmoment by some member of our family. (Fortunately, our garage is
\nenough of a deathtrap that my 7-year-old daughter doesn’t dare go
\nspelunking.)<\/p>\n
Also belonging to this pile of hopefully-repressed memories is a
\nlot of the hair metal that we used to listen to when we were
\nyounger. Now, I happen to like Dokken, though I admit that they had
\nto grow on me when I was in my teens. I’ve seen their live show,
\nand they have truly impressed me.<\/p>\n
But when I go back and listen to an album like
\nBreaking The Chains<\/i>, Dokken’s debut effort from 1983, I have
\nto wonder just what people saw in them at all. Horribly lacking in
\nany musical muscle and delivered with half-hearted vocals, this
\ndisc has been forgotten in time — and rightfully so.<\/p>\n
Granted, the title track is worth the effort, even if Don
\nDokken’s vocals seem like they could have been amped up a bit more
\nand delivered with some fire. But once you get past that
\nthree-minute blast, there really isn’t much more worth celebrating
\non this disc.<\/p>\n
Tracks such as “In The Middle,” “Felony,” “Seven Thunders” and
\n“Nightrider” all fail to demonstrate why Dokken was deserving of a
\nchance in the world of heavy metal (though to be fair, Dokken could
\nwell have been one of those bands who were mis-labeled as metal
\nwhen they really were more rock). It often sounds like the band was
\nstill coming together as a group, with some beats coming in
\nslightly off-tempo on occasion. And while George Lynch is regarded
\nby some as a guitar hero, he doesn’t offer the kind of pyrotechnics
\non the six-stringer that you would expect. Even the opening moments
\nof “Paris Is Burning,” which is supposed to be a showcase for
\nLynch, fails to spark any real interest.<\/p>\n
So what went wrong with
\nBreaking The Chains<\/i>? In the end, it was a series of small
\nproblems which, when added up, turned into a big mess. Dokken would
\neventually find their musical voice and niche, and the overall
\ngroove would tighten up to the point of implosion (which,
\nregrettably, Dokken has a history of). While they would go on to
\nmake some solid music,
\nBreaking The Chains<\/i> is undoubtedly the weakest link in their
\ndiscography.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":26630,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"artist":[6328],"rating":[5616],"class_list":["post-37877","review","type-review","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","artist-dokken","rating-rating-d"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/37877","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=37877"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/37877\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/26630"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=37877"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"artist","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/artist?post=37877"},{"taxonomy":"rating","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rating?post=37877"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}