Captain Howdy

Well its better than repeating one word over and over again.

The style hit me straight away as being similar to the debut, but listening back to it a couple of times and I think they have purposely dropped in little segments of various songs to emphasise it. I might be over analysing it, but that's how it sounded to me.

As someone who was never a fan of the first two albums, it will come as no surprise that I prefer the Skid Row song (it cannot be a coincidence they both dropped the same day, surely). That said, this to me sounds better than the first two albums as musically it has more in common with Erik era H.E.A.T. I did like the song and gives me hope that I will still enjoy H.E.A.T. now Erik is gone, but repeating Nationwide as the chorus was a bit shit though.

Just listened to the song again, and at 2:09 I thought they were starting to play Rattlesnake shake. Edit: actually the more I listen to it the more I hear little exerpts of other songs from the debut. A bit of Sweet little sister here, some Piece of me there.

Me likey.

Yer getting old and memory is failing, Geoffrey.

Funnily enough this was just recommended to me on YouTube so had a listen. Kinda reinforces my opinion that the other original guys in Skid Row are just as douchey as they accuse Seb of being. Not once would I say that Seb is not part of the problem, but I will say I think they are all to blame, and in this day and age I am starting to side with Seb more and more. I think Seb has carved out a pretty decent solo career in the last few years and has done other stuff like stage shows and TV shows, so I do not think he needs Skid Row, but he is the one up for it while SR has continued to bury their legacy. Just listening to Sabo talk about Harnell and Solinger in this interview makes me dislike him even more. With every nice comment he makes, he says something else shitty, and it just seems that the reason they cannot hold on to a singer is because those three are too controlling and want a puppet to manipulate as their front man. God I hope they can see value in Erik as a creative person and let go of their attitude of "we do things this way, and we ain't gonna change". As Seb says at the end of this video, he has worked with a lot of people who have no issue with him, and the last time these guys were even in the same room together was during the 90s, so what he was like now and what he was like then are not necessarily the same. We all know he is loud, cocky and opinionated (plus can be annoying), but you only have to look at his social media to see that Seb now is not the Seb who wore a "AIDS kills fags" t-shirt, many years ago. I hope to god this works out for Erik, and I would love to hear some cool as fuck Skid Row music again, but I am not convinced this will work out, sadly. We are all too old and too ugly to be holding onto grudges, and these guys need to learn that. If the guys in GNR and Motley can put aside their feelings to work things out, if Eddie and Dave could put aside theirs, and Ozzy and Sabbath could put aside theirs, then so can these miserable old bastards.

I think the thing is, Erik is probably a far bigger name right now than Skid Row. Yes they are a legacy band, but without Seb they have struggled to retain a fanbase. I reckon H.E.A.T. albums sold more copies world wide than the last few Skid Row releases. I do think the biggest benefit they have with him is vocally he can probably match Seb vocally, which not many can do. He will be just as good at the classic ballads as he will at the harder Slave material. They have certainly picqued my interest in the band again.

From what I remember, Solinger originally claimed to have quit, and rather than let it go at that, Bolan did an interview saying he was lying and that they let him go via a phone call (not even face to face like men) and announced Harnell the same day, but that they had been working with Tony for months. Tony left less than a year later as he said he was sick of being ignored and disrespected, but several years later he said despite the issues he had with the other band members, he regrets quitting. All that said, as I mentioned before, Seb has always been open to a reunion but the other three say they won't work with him and have always painted him as the villain, yet their actions since have shown them to not be so squeaky clean. Hell, when Seb did the anniversary tour for the debut album he asked them to join him, and they once again refuse. Rob Affuso though did join him, but won't have anything to do with Skid Row .. that to me is very telling that maybe Seb is not entirely to blame in all this. We all know he is a loud mouth and cocky as hell, but other bands have put differences aside and it has worked.

The only reason Erik might last longer is he is a fanboy for the band, Harnell was one of their peers back in the day. I think for him it was just a job, for Erik it's kinda his dream.

I get the feeling that although the split was amicable, Erik wanted to grow and go in new directions with the band, and the rest of the band wanted to go back to their more "classic" sound, hence the whole blurb about their last album being a throwback to the first two albums. That might have made Erik feel somewhat alienated. And lets face it, his latest release shows he was probably feeling somewhat restrained creatively and he got to do something he could never do with H.E.A.T. (although obviously working with Jona still, so the split does seem genuinely amicable). Going on New Horizon's sound, and the early EG era H.E.A.T. albums, I could easily see him wanting to return Skid Row to a sound somewhere between their debut and Slave.

Video debuts Friday

And just saw this on Wikipedia page for the band: "In a February 2022 interview with The Music Universe, Sabo confirmed that the band's sixth studio album is expected to be released on September 16 (his 58th birthday), and added its single will be released "around the second [or] third week of March." They also said a few years ago that vol.3 would be a full album, and be out in 2019 and that never happened, so going on this news from Erik, I doubt this album release will happen anytime soon. I don't see Erik just slotting into the band and recording the vocals (like Durbin did on that Quiet Riot album that was already recorded with previous singer) for an album he has no creative input in.

I know Solinger was with them a long while, but including him, Erik will be the 4th singer in the last 6 or 7 years, and they have not even released anything other than one remake (from what I remember) since 2014, and still have not done anything about what was supposed to be Vol.3 of the United world rebellion set. If this sees them return to a more classic style, and Erik brings them more attention, then maybe it is not so bad, but going on how they have treated people in recent years, I don't see this lasting. They always take every opportunity to shit on Bach, but the way they got rid of Solinger (RIP) after all the years he spent with them, just shows that Bach was not the only douche in the band and they are probably just as guilty as him for why it fell apart.

Announced by the man himself on FaceBook Erik Grönwall 17m · Ladies and gents. I herby declare the circle of all fucking circles complete. You’re looking at the new singer of @officialskidrow #skidrow #erikgronwall

Seems the album is quite short at only 8 songs, two of which are new and the other six appeared on their debut, but these are either re-records or earlier demos. I just checked an article about the band and it says something about it celebrating the unreleased years, so am guessing demos.

More of an intro than an actual song I guess

It is. I assume some got advanced copies, and I ordered my copy direct from the record label website and they dispatched early, so others may have had the same luck.

Got my deluxe copy a few days early and already on its third spin in a row .. absolutely loving it, including the great cover of Bark at the moon. The boxset is only for collectors though. The box it comes in is overkill size wise as the handheld game is frikkin tiny, and the autographed post card is pretty much standard postcard size, and certificate is similar size. Box could have been at least half the size it is. Can't say I will ever even bother trying the game out, I mostly just bought this as a limited edition and for the autograph card too.