Buckcherry - Rock 'N' Roll

The last down n' dirty rock n' roll band in town is back for another round.

I've been a Buckcherry fan since they showed up on the scene with "Lit Up", so I'm always a little excited when they come out with a new album.  Hearing something new from them brings me back to the summer of '99, driving around with the D.W.O. doing loser laps, and trying to get into bars without any real form of ID.

The new album from Buckcherry, Rock 'N' Roll, is really good.  If you're looking for a departure from the usual Buckcherry flair, it's not here.  There's nothing overly new here, unless you count the funky horns section in Tight Pants, and that's a good thing.  Buckcherry is really the last of the old school rock bands.  And even though they weren't around during the heyday of Aerosmith, AC/DC, Motley Crue, or Guns N' Fuckin' Roses, you can feel like they belong in that club.

Last summer, Buckcherry released an EP simply called Fuck.  It was decent, but mostly a novelty when you think that it was pretty much recorded to set a record for the most times the word "Fuck" was used on an album.  Take that, hip hop!  But seriously, it worried me when the best song on the EP was the cover of Icona Pop's "I Love It", retitled brilliantly as "Say Fuck It".

What we have on Rock 'N' Roll is a return to Buckcherry basics - strong guitars, catchy hooks, and just enough swearing to make it cool but not completely unable to get on radio.  After the band had a huge hit with Crazy Bitch in '06, I think they tried relying too much on the blatant in-your-face swearing to keep themselves noticed.  Hence, the Fuck EP and a few other songs that had a good idea but lacked the hook of Crazy Bitch's pre-chorus.

I already mentioned Tight Pants, which has such a strong groove that it could have been an Aerosmith song from the Get A Grip era.  It rocks, it funks, it swears a little... it's Buckcherry at their finest.  Then there's The Madness and Sex Appeal, which follow the tried n' true Buckcherry verse-chorus-hook formula that worked on Lit Up, Everything, and Next 2 You in the past.

Wood continues Josh Todd's lyrical exploration of hooking up with chicks, while rockers like Cradle and Get With It are great to listen to while enjoying a beer.

The only throwaway for me was The Feeling Never Dies, which I seem to find myself skipping on each listen.

Overall, this is one of Buckcherry's strongest releases, and probably their most complete offering since 2006's 15.  It's tight, fast-paced, and leaves you wanting more.  Definitely worth the $9.99 I dropped on iTunes for it.

- ryan