June 2, 2004
POP REVIEW | VELVET REVOLVER
A Supergroup With the Roots Showing
By JON PARELES
The New York Times Velvet Revolver had all the moves when it played Roseland last week. There was the five-shirtless-guys move, discarding black T-shirts one by one. There was the singer's bell-bottom prance and hip-thrusting shake. There was the leaning-on-the-nonchalant-guitarist move and the drummer-slamming-the-gong move.
The members of Velvet Revolver have had plenty of time to perfect their rock-star struts because they arrive with experience. The lead singer, Scott Weiland, led the 1990's grunge band Stone Temple Pilots until his drug problems capsized what had been a million-selling act. The drummer, Matt Sorum; the bassist, Duff McKagan; and the guitarist Slash were in Guns N' Roses. That band recharged hard rock in the 1980's but has been foundering as its leader, Axl Rose, hires and fires musicians and makes and remakes a long-delayed album. A second guitarist, Dave Kushner, came from lesser-known bands.
So Velvet Revolver arrived at Roseland last Wednesday as an old-fashioned supergroup: a merger of Guns N' Roses' punked-up glam-rock and Stone Temple Pilots' grunge. And as in the corporate mergers that clogged the media business in the 1990's, there's a clash of precedents. Mr. Weiland's toughest job is deciding whether to be a stand-in for Mr. Rose or to continue the darker, more cryptic side he showed in Stone Temple Pilots.
Apparently the band has majority rule; Velvet Revolver sounds far closer to Guns N' Roses, playing bluesy hard rock rather than sodden grunge.
And Mr. Weiland accepts the job, from appearing in a military/chauffeur's hat to shimmying his hips just like Mr. Rose. The songs are about the gripes of the rich and famous â?? "All that first-class jet set brings me down," Mr. Weiland sang â?? and from the Stone Temple Pilots side, about lingering obsessions with God, sin and redemption.
"Slither," the band's first single, is an atypical chunk of moody grunge, a misleading introduction to a band that's far more about straightforward rock.
Slash stepped forward repeatedly for solos that started with bent bluesy notes and headed for fast squiggles; the rhythm section had Guns N' Roses swing. Velvet Revolver's inevitable ballad, "Fall to Pieces," was an obvious attempt to remake Guns N' Roses' "November Rain." But Mr. Weiland doesn't have a voice as unmistakable as Mr. Rose's bitter yowl; he's more of a whiner.
It was proudly old-fashioned rock, Hollywood style, switching between narcissism and surliness, and it had a slightly preserved quality despite the band's proficiency.
Eventually another hat told the story: Slash put on his tall hat with the silver band, and Velvet Revolver turned into a Guns N' Roses tribute.
The band overreached to end with Nirvana's "Negative Creep," pounding away like professionals while completely gutting the song of its lunging, sneering, outcast attitude. Velvet Revolver is a band of insiders hoping for brand recognition, posturing as hard as it can.
