Review:

on 2011-04-19 RockandRollCentre Said:

Make no mistake. This album rocks aloud with screaming guitar licks and powerful vocals from frontman Sebastian Bach, singer of Skid Row at the time of this albums release in 1989. The album contains eleven hard rocking tracks that have a borderline heavy metal feel particularly some of the guitar solos by lead guitarist Dave "The Snake" Sabo.

To begin with, the small details. The booklet inside the CD is a generic booklet of the lyrics to each song and credits to the band and affiliates at the end. It's a shame there is no information and pictures about this fantastic band to draw the reader in further to the band and their stories.

But enough about small picks at minor flaws. The tracks on this album all have a strong focus on teenage struggles and life on the city streets. The main song focusing on this intriguing topic is the single '18 and life'. This song is an amazing hard rock song with emotional lyrics and musical composition about an eighteen year old boy named Ricky who accidentally shot his friend and was sentenced to life imprisonment. This song has an almost haunting guitar intro before the moving lyrics of the song begin.

The highlights of this album are '18 and life', 'Youth gone wild', 'Big Guns' and 'I remember you'. However there is not a song on this album that can really be put down as of poor quality. 'I remember you' is a great power ballad that you will not forget. It's guitar solo has enough emotion to make the hairs on the back of your neck stand up and the almost growled like voice of Sebastian Bach adds an overall amazing feel to an already great song.

From listening to all the tracks on this album it's clear to see the talent of the band line up at the time being Dave "The Snake" Sabo, Rachel Bolan, Sebastian Bach, Rob Affuso and Scotti Hill. These guys really do deliver and put their all into this album.

There is an aggressive feel and attitude put across especially through Sebastian Bach's gruff and powerful vocals.

'Skid Row' is different to most other rock and glam metal albums released at the time like Poison and Whitesnake albums and delivers an aggressive feel to this album, not to dissimilar to Guns 'n' Roses.

Overall this is a great album, even if at times some of the power ballads can be a bit generic to others at the time but nevertheless they are emotionally and masterfully written. 'Skid Row' is a hard rocking late 1980s album that is a must for rock fans worldwide and therefore earns itself a rating of:

9/10

Review by http://www.rockandrollcentre.webeden.co.uk/#
Rating: 9/10