Starring Alice Cooper guitarist Tommy Henriksen and that includes visitor spots from Phil Collen and Nikki Sixx, Crossbone Skully’s debut – an unlikely idea album about an avenging superhero from the far reaches of area, who’s right here, like Flash Gordon earlier than him, to save lots of Planet Earth – may be dismissed as yet one more underwhelming self-importance venture had been it not for the involvement of superproducer Robert John ‘Mutt’ Lange, who, we’re instructed, emerged from retirement to function govt producer on Evil World Machine.
Whether or not it is a purely ceremonial function or an precise working contribution stays unclear, however Mutt’s sonic fingerprints are all around the album, from the enormous, propulsive riffs and the enormous, clattering drums to the enormous gang vocals that give carry to the enormous, swaying choruses.
It’s virtually hilariously Muttish, an AC/Leppard mongrel that’s 50% celebration soundtrack and 50% time journey. Everybody’s On Dope is a medical miracle, in some way combining each eras of AC/DC into one wonderful thudding package deal, The Final Evening On Earth is a greater Def Leppard ballad than Joe Elliott & co. have give you in quite a lot of many years, after which there’s Let’s Bust The Belief, which in some way seems like Large Wagons overlaying the Dropkick Murphys.
It may be gloriously daft, nevertheless it’s additionally wonderful.
