CD REVIEW: SLASH featuring Myles Kennedy & The Conspirators – World On Fire

CD REVIEW: SLASH featuring Myles Kennedy & The Conspirators – World On Fire
Sony
September 2014
Reviewed by Shane Pinnegar
10/10

“Rock Is Dead” some would have you believe, but from the insistent riffing of title track World On Fire Slash, Myles Kennedy and their Conspirators Todd Kerns & Brent Fitz are telling a very different story: one of rude – almost priapic – health!

The third solo (so to speak) album by the ex-Gunner, and the second by this line-up, it’s almost tempting to suggest World On Fire is the Guns n’ Roses album that
should have followed the Use Your Illusion sets.

Truthfully though, World On Fire is more than that: it’s the sound of this foursome hitting their straps and performing at the top of their game, and sounding like no other band could.

There’s some of Slash’s best guitar work ever, and letting the guitar hero handle rhythm and lead in the studio has paid off for Kennedy’s vocal performance, which never skips a beat. Kerns is as rock solid as ever and Fitz proves himself one of the finest rock drummers around, never over playing, but never sounding pedestrian, either.

There are standout songs just about everywhere – and at 17 songs long, you’d better bring a cut lunch and a water bag – ensuring World On Fire never overstays its welcome.

On Automatic Overdrive, 30 Years To Life, Bent To Fly and Battleground all hit the sweet spot, and Kennedy proves himself again and again the perfect foil to Slash’s distinctive, incendiary string-bending – and what a joy t must be for the cat in the hat to have finally found a vocalist collaborator devoid of emotional issues. That could be Rose or Weiland up there, had they kept their shit together, but Kennedy deserves his spot and marquee billing.

Dirty Girl ramps up the sleaze, Kennedy and Slash both strutting like peacocks, while Iris Of The Storm and Avalon keep the rock hard. The Dissident features another super-catchy chorus, while Safari Inn is a bluesy instrumental with a tight groove that lets Slash just play the hell out of his axe. Album closer The Unholy brings things down a notch to wrap things up with a brooding, smouldering intensity.

World On Fire is a truly great rock n’ roll album, one that not only single-handedly disproves the laughable supposition that rock is dead, but which might also be the high water mark of Slash’s career since Appetite For Destruction.

Category: CD Reviews