Joe Perry: Joe Perry

Written by The Rock Radio staff, June 2005 © The Rock Radio

Joe Perry is known throughout the world for his lead guitar role with Aerosmith. He is less known, however, for his solo career, since - with the exception of three albums released when he left Aerosmith in the early 80's to form The Joe Perry Project, he never actually had a pure solo album.

In this new, self-titled solo album, he does almost everything himself; he is the co-producer, vocalist, guitarist, keyboardist and bass guitarist.

All tracks were recorded in his home studio in Boston: 11 new tracks plus two covers, The Doors' "Crystal Ship" and Woody Guthrie's "Vigilante Man". Musically it sounds like Aerosmith with a touch of blues. And while it is heavily concentrated on Perry's guitar play - which is very solid, it fails to impress because his vocal ability is at least questionable.

If you don't have good lead vocals you kill the album no matter how good the production, the songs or the guitars are. It is a shame Perry didn't recruit a proper vocalist to make this reasonable album come to life.

As it stands, this one is for Aerosmith / Perry die-hard fans only.

Released: May 3, 2005

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