HOLLYWOOD VAMPIRES
Rise EARMUSIC Rock and film legends prove less than the sum of their parts
Back in the 70s, a swashbuckling pack of rockers including Alice Cooper, John Lennon, Ringo Starr and Keith Moon patrolled Los Angeles’ dark underbelly in gleeful pursuit of all of the sex, drugs and rock’n’roll they could find. They adopted the name Hollywood Vampires. In 2015, de facto leader Alice Cooper resurrected the Vampires, recruiting Aerosmith guitarist Joe Perry and actor Johnny Depp (guitar, vocals), and released their eponymous debut. Featuring mainly cover songs, Hollywood Vampires served up a breezy dose of fun, but ultimately forgettable classic rock nostalgia.
This summer the band release Rise, their 16-track follow-up, this time featuring nearly all original material. Opener I Want My Now unleashes a siege of revved up guitars, a hard-driving bassline and Cooper’s insta-recognisable sneer, before burning off into a formulaic style of blues rock that sounds great at the pub but which you’d be hard-pressed to recall on the drive home. More interesting are tracks like Who’s Laughing Now, with Depp channelling his inner Jim Morrison, and Mr. Spider, a brooding slice of R&B with meaty psychedelic undertones. Sadly, the promising ideas never reach fruition; across the album, the vibe changes dramatically from track to track, without any emotional footholds to connect them.
Rise is not without highlights, however. Git From Round Me jumps with the slithery swagger of Purple- era Stone
Temple Pilots and Joe
Perry gives a heartwrenchingly sweet turn on the Johnny Thunders cover You Can’t Put Your Arms Around A Memory. Boasting a guest appearance from Jeff Beck (on Welcome To Bushwackers), both the musicianship and the production are beyond reproach. However, the tracks badly lack the hooks or the type of seductive chemistry that has defined Cooper and Perry’s greatest hits. In the end, we’re left with a clutch of highly polished, generic rock songs that were likely more fun to record than to actually listen to.
FOR FANS OF: Michael Monroe, Backyard Babies, Vince Neil