Title: Libertad
Artist: Velvet Revolver
Rating: 4/5

You are either going to love, or hate, Velvet Revolver. You’ll either write them off as a tired rock band pumping out the same old cliches or you’ll revel in the rock and soak up the Scott Weiland vocal performance. In my mind Scott Weiland is one of the great front men. He has one of the most versatile and charismatic voices in rock.

As a rock supergroup, Velvet Revolver succeed where Audioslave failed. The Stone Temple Pilots and Guns ‘n’ Roses union works well together, and the group sound even more assured on their second album, Libertad, than they did on their debut.

The album kicks out of the blocks hard and fast with hard rockers, ‘Let It Roll’ and ‘Shes Mine’, before easing into “power ballad” territory with ‘Last Fight’. ‘American Man’ teeters on the verge of jangly guitar pop meshed with Slash’s trademark blues-rock guitar lines.

The album officially closes with ‘Gravedancer’ which would be Libertad’s answer to ‘Fall to pieces’ from the bands debut. If you let ‘Gravedancer’ play out there’s also a country and western tinged hidden track.

Overall, this is an album that is a toe tapper from start to finish, it’s of consistent quality all the way through. Pick it up if you liked the first Velvet Revolver album or anything released by Stone Temple Pilot from the Purple album onward.

Here’s the video for the first single from Libertad, ‘She builds quick machines’.