L.A. Guns - Black Diamonds

[Stefan]

 

New album 'Black Diamonds' out April 14 through Frontiers.

More details to come...

Edited February 3, 2023 by Stefan

[AlphaMale]

cool....

[lettard]

They are definitely makin up for those "lost years" by churning em out..one to watch out for

[auslander]

Hope it is not a collection of KISS covers haha. (Though that might also be cool).

[Captain Howdy]

New video/song debuts today on the Eddie Trunk show apparently. Between 5pm & 8pm , not sure what timezone.

[Stefan]

 

New lyric video for 'You Betray'.

From Frontier:

L.A. Guns have announced the upcoming release of their latest studio album, "Black Diamonds". 

Produced by founding member and guitarist Tracii Guns, "Black Diamonds" is a tour-de-force of rock 'n roll that fans have come to expect from the long-running hard rockers. 

Written and recorded over the course of 2022, "Black Diamonds" sees Tracii Guns, Phil Lewis, and company continuing on the same successful and inspiring sonic journey that they've been taking on their most recent albums, "Checkered Past", "The Devil You Know", and "The Missing Peace". 

The band doesn't shy away from flexing their hard rock influences as they always have, but also incorporates more introspective acoustic tracks reflective of their classic rock influences from the '70s. This makes for a potent and highly listenable cocktail of an album in "Black Diamonds". Since their self-titled debut in 1988 to their widely praised recent suite of "comeback" albums, L.A. GUNS, led by Tracii Guns and Phil Lewis, have always delivered solid rock ‘n roll to their fans. Since core members Tracii and Phil reunited under the banner of L.A. Guns in 2017, a rekindling of the band's creative energy has been continuing unabated over the course of, now, four studio albums. 

"Black Diamonds" shows no signs of this renaissance slowing down… L.A. Guns never looked like the pretty poster boys that so many of their peers did, but more the band that you would be terrified to bump into in an alley as they would likely be carrying switchblades and ready for a fight. 

But despite having many songs to back up that image, the band could also write powerful ballads (see the smash hit, “The Ballad Of Jayne” for Exhibit A of this argument) that showed there were some serious songwriting chops in the band. 

The story of how we got from the band’s powerful early years to a fourth new studio album in the relatively short time that Guns and Lewis have reunited has already been well documented, so no need to rehash it. What’s important to know and understand is that the driving force of all those classic L.A. Guns songs was Tracii and Phil. Feeling inspired and excited like they did when they first started out, but with many years of wisdom and experience under their belts, and most importantly, a renewed and stronger creative and personal relationship, Guns, Lewis, and L.A. Guns as a whole are at a creative peak. 

Tracklisting:
1. You Betray
2. Wrong About You
3. Diamonds
4. Babylon
5. Shame
6. Shattered Glass
7. Gonna Lose
8. Got It Wrong
9. Lowlife
10. Crying
11. Like A Drug

Line-Up:
Phil Lewis - Vocals
Tracii Guns - Electric & Acoustic Guitars, MellotronAce Von Johnson - Electric Guitars
Johnny Martin - Bass, Electric Electric Guitars
Shawn Duncan - Drums (live)
Adam Hamilton - Drums (studio) & Strings

 

 

 

 

Edited April 10, 2023 by Stefan

[Stefan]

New video for 'Shattered Glass'.

 

 

Edited April 16, 2023 by Stefan

[AlphaMale]

both suck

[whiplash1972]

32 minutes ago, AlphaMale said:

both suck

I kinda liked “You Betray”, but “Shattered Glass” is f’n horrible 

[AlphaMale]

46 minutes ago, whiplash1972 said:

I kinda liked “You Betray”, but “Shattered Glass” is f’n horrible 

Agreed!!  

[SunsetHoliday]

Eh, Shattered Glass is ok, the intro feels very amateurish to me and something about the bass drum beat in the verse feels off and sloppy

[KarpetRydOFunk]

So I can continue to ignore this? Cool. 

[Stefan]

New video for 'Diamonds'

 

 

 

Edited April 16, 2023 by Stefan

[tobi is an animal]

oh dear.

[whiplash1972]

Listening to this one this afternoon... first thing I noticed was that "Shattered Glass" was actually one of the better tracks in comparison to the rest...  

It sounded alot better off my CD than the video, so that probably improved my opinion of the song. Overall, this album is just a big bag of "meh" though. 

[Captain Howdy]

Weakest album of the reunion era to be honest. Certainly not bad, and some good tracks on it just also a bunch of "what were they thinking" songs as well.

Shattered glass and Diamonds are actually my fave tracks on the album, and while You betray isn't a bad song, it is a weird song to open the album with imo.

Lowlife is probably my fave of the songs I have not heard before, and is one of the faster paced songs on the album.

Gonna lose is a bit of a weird one, starts out sounding exactly like Mother Blues (Ratt/Arcade), then turns into a Led Zeppelin sounding song. And Crying is like something from The Beatles.

Nothing terrible on the album, but can't see it having the replayability of the last three albums for me.

[lettard]

Agree on Lowlife and indeed this being the weakest of the reunion albums...come to think of it I also agree on the replayability too 

[Geoff]

'Diamonds' is easily my favourite on this one but it must be said, that it's a pretty terrible album. 

Generally, we all want to see core members reunite and continue to play in these bands together, and Guns and Lewis back together should be a good thing... but the results are garbage so far. Phil Lewis was churning out far better albums with whoever was in LA Guns before Tracii Guns returned. Hate to say that and I wish they could work out how to make good music together again, but man this is bad. Don't love what the other version of LA Guns is doing either, but i's much better than this. 

[nyoilers]

I have more of a positive reaction to this CD than everyone else. That's not to say that I love it but there are some diamonds in the rough ! I like Got It Wrong,Lowlife and the title track as the top 3 favs of mine

[Stefan]

'Over The Edge (Acoustic Mix) from the deluxe version of the album.