You can tell how healthy former junkie and Stone Temple Pilots' frontman Scott Weiland is by the quality and range of his voice. He's been clean for a few years now and on Velvet Revolver's second album he has never sounded better.
The girls swooned over him whenhe was a drug-addled and inconsistent mess during STP's 90s reign, so, if they've stuck by him in the interim, they'll be wanting to tear his clothes off if serenades like The Last Fight and Gravedancer are anything to go by.
Libertad (freedom in Spanish) is also a step up on Velvet Revolver's 2005 debut, Contraband. That was a good, but cobbled together album, and a little samey. In contrast Libertad moves from the racy blues swagger of Let It Roll, to the rough rawness of Spay, and on to the balladry of The Last Fight and Can't Get You Out of My Head.
Plus there are more greasy and sleazy guitar flourishes from Slash than you've heard since Appetite For Destruction, and fellow ex-Gunner Duff McKagan has beefed up his bass. However, it's Weiland who brings a beautiful refinement to the album.
In fact, to paraphrase our own Flight of the Conchords, Libertad is so beautiful it could be a high-class prostitute.
Label: Sony/BMG
Verdict: Sleaze plus poise equals recipe for middle-aged rockers' success
