I don’t remember exactly how or when I got into Dokken; I think
\nit was because I heard their music played on the brokered heavy
\nmetal station so much that I finally relelnted and bought their
\nalbums at the used record store. But after their live disc
\nBeast From the East<\/i>, Dokken seemed to fade into the annals
\nof hard rock history.<\/p>\n
Don Dokken and crew finally reunited a few years ago, apparently
\nputting all bad blood behind them for a while. However, after their
\nlast studio effort
\nShadowlife<\/i> (which got reamed on these pages – relax, I
\ndidn’t write the review), guitarist extraordinaire George Lynch
\nbolted to restart his solo career and side band Lynch Mob. How
\nwould a band like Dokken replace such an intregal part of their
\nsound.<\/p>\n
The answer might have surprised a few people: enter Reb Beach,
\nformerly of Winger. Well, snicker all you want, ’cause the style of
\nmusic Dokken plays on their latest album
\nErase The Slate<\/i> seems to be the key that unlocked the doors
\nfor Beach to really cut loose and shred. And while I’ll freely
\nadmit I haven’t followed Dokken for some time – hell, I just bought
\na used copy of
\nShadowlife<\/i> the other day – I have to admit, this disc
\nimpressed me.<\/p>\n
Okay, so you’re still not convinced that Beach is the correct
\nfit for Dokken. All you have to do, my friend, is slam this disc in
\nthe player and crank up the title track. One listen to the guitar
\nsolo that Beach wrings out of his six-string, you just might be
\nasking yourself, “George
\nwho<\/i>?”<\/p>\n
Granted, Dokken gets off to a little bit of a slow start with
\n“Erase The Slate” and “Change The World”; if anything, these cuts
\nshow that Dokken’s voice is as strong today as it was in the
\nmid-’80s, while the band has rarely sounded as tight. Once you get
\nto cuts like “Maddest Hatter” and “Shattered,” things really start
\nto click for the band, and there’s no looking back from there
\non.<\/p>\n
After an interesting choice of cover songs – ever expect to hear
\na metal band cover Harry Nilsson’s “One”? –
\nErase The Slate<\/i> truly makes its mark with tracks like “Who
\nBelieves,” “Haunted Lullabye” and “Crazy Mary Goes Round,” the
\nlatter track featuring vocals form drummer Wild Mick Brown. It’s an
\ninteresting twist, and it’s one that works.<\/p>\n
Now, if you weren’t that big of a Dokken fan in their glory
\ndays, chances are
\nErase The Slate<\/i> won’t do much to win you over. (Then again,
\nstranger things have been known to happen.) But even if you were a
\ncasual fan of the band as I would classify myself, you can’t help
\nbut be impressed with what Dokken has created. They went into this
\ndisc probably knowing that they wouldn’t be topping the Billboard
\ncharts, but they wanted to create the best possible music – if only
\nfor themselves. Something tells me that they’ll end up sharing
\nthese songs with more people than they could imagine right now.<\/p>\n
\nErase The Slate<\/i> is a return to form for Dokken that should
\nhelp to strengthen the argument for returning this band to the
\nspotlight.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":27961,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"artist":[6328],"rating":[5617],"class_list":["post-39353","review","type-review","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","artist-dokken","rating-rating-b-plus"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/39353","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=39353"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/39353\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/27961"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=39353"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"artist","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/artist?post=39353"},{"taxonomy":"rating","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rating?post=39353"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}