slash world on fire
“World On Fire” – the latest album by Slash and Co.

Anyone who is familiar with great guitarists knows who Slash is. Born Saul Hudson, his now-famous moniker made a name for himself back in the mid-to-late 80’s as the lead guitarists for Guns N’ Roses and then in the mid-2000’s with the hard rock supergroup Velvet Revolver. Since then, he’s gone solo, recruiting Myles Kennedy, vocalist for Alter Bridge and a band of players dubbed The Conspirators.

This album “World On Fire” is their second album. If you remember from my 2012 Top Albums list, “Apocalyptic Love” just missed my best of the year pick, coming it at number 2. I’ve played that album so many times. It’s a great work that still gets played a lot here. So how does this new album compare? Pretty well, in this Slash fan’s opinion.

Track Listing

  1. “World on Fire”
  2. “Shadow Life”
  3. “Automatic Overdrive”
  4. “Wicked Stone”
  5. “30 Years to Life”
  6. “Bent to Fly”
  7. “Stone Blind”
  8. “Too Far Gone”
  9. “Beneath the Savage Sun”
  10. “Withered Delilah”
  11. “Battleground”
  12. “Dirty Girl”
  13. “Iris of the Storm”
  14. “Avalon”
  15. “The Dissident”
  16. “Safari Inn”
  17. “The Unholy”

Hard Rock Lives

Seventeen songs is quite the undertaking for any album, let alone an album of hard rock. But all but two of the songs are hard rockers, without question. The ballads are “Bent To Fly” and “Battleground”, which showcase Slash’s softer side of playing. Which still have hard-edged solos that kick in at the right time.

For the remaining 15 tracks, they are a nice mix of fast-paced with great lyrical content that obviously compliments Myles’ strong vocal expertise. I really like “Too Far Gone”, “Shadow Life”, 30 Years To Life” and “Avalon” and how they are put together so well that I know them quite well over repeated listens. I was never a fan of Alter Bridge, but I always appreciated how Myles made the songs his own. Paired with Slash, this is another brilliant match made in rock.

The production quality is great, but doesn’t seem as over-produced as the previous album. I have to admit that it took a few listens for this new album to catch on. Some of that was how ingrained I let the last album get, so I had high expectations, which this album has matched pretty well.

I like “World On Fire” a lot and am confident that Slash can do no wrong when creating new music. I just need to him live as a solo artist [saw GnR in 1991 and Velvet Revolver in 2006] to hear some of these songs live.