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Versione 1
Rating: This is the second band of Slash that reaches the release of a third album: I consider the discography of Guns n' Roses to consist of only three works, Appetite for Destruction, Use Your Illusion I, Use Your Illusion II (I exclude GNR Lies and The Spaghetti Incident, which consist respectively of demos and covers).
The guitarist's other two bands, Slash's Snakepit and Velvet Revolver, both stopped at two works.
These are the Slash Featuring Myles Kennedy & The Conspirators, consisting of Slash and Kennedy on guitar and vocals respectively, Todd Kerns on bass (and keyboards, few, indeed very few, but never out of place) and Brent Fitz on drums.
It is precisely Kerns and Fitz, The Conspirators, who make the duo of champions, Slash & Kennedy, a group, compact in sound, immediately recognizable, today, in my opinion, the best Hard Rock combo around, on par with Kennedy's other family, Alter Bridge, which I would not consider a pure Hard Rock group, but a modern Heavy Metal band.
Hard Rock has two rules, the geometry of the pieces and the essentiality of the sound, both present in all three works of the band: Apocalyptic Love (2012), World on Fire (2014), and this Living the Dream (2018) which sees the addition of a fifth element, Frank Sidoris, on rhythm guitar.
The rhythmic harmonizations of the latter make this album more melodic compared to the two predecessors, in some ways close to the atmospheres of the two Use Your Illusion.
The Great Pretender is perhaps the best track on the CD: the opening is entirely entrusted to Slash's guitar, incredibly melodious, a thrilling riff that brings me back to the magic of Sweet Child o' Mine; beautiful Kerns' choruses that lead to Slash's central solo, very inspired. Kennedy sings like a champion, as in all the tracks anyway.
Slow Grind and Mind Your Manners are two Hard Rock tracks, melodious and rebellious at the same time, with fairly evident harmonic references the first to It's So Easy, the second to Welcome to the Jungle; however, both tracks have their own identity, they stand on their own notes.
Read Between the Lines, with its Hendrixian opening riff, is the most classic Slash-sound, dirty bluesy rock, with beautiful choruses from the excellent Kerns, close to the atmospheres of the first work by Slash's Snakepit.
My Antidote and Sugar Cane are powerful tracks, closer to Heavy Metal than Hard Rock: both excellent, with unsurpassable solos in terms of speed and technique.
Lost Inside the Girl and The One You Loved is Gone are two classic, beautiful ballads: more rhythmic the first, slow and relaxed the second. In both, two textbook solos that remain impressed from the first listen.
The album closes with Boulevard of Broken Hearts, an atypical track for Slash's repertoire, very theatrical, very "produced", less immediate and raw than usual: the main riff resembles quite a bit Eye of the Tiger by Survivor.
I recommend this album to fans of the most classic Hard Rock: listen to it not in search of Guns n' Roses, but of the present of Hard Rock, to which Slash Featuring Myles Kennedy & The Conspirators will still know how to give pages of renewed splendor.
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