Music Review - Aerosmith: Music From Another Dimension

            I had officially given up on Aerosmith a few years back.  Yes, I still loved the old music (especially the 70s era stuff that I grew up on once my parents got a working record player) but I didn’t expect much, nor did I get excited when the various rumors of a new tour, or new album came around.  I saw the band right after the release of Honkin’ on Bobo (when they were on tour with KISS) and they greatly underwhelmed, to the point where they were soundly booed by the entire crowd when they left the stage.  At that point, I realized that Aerosmith, as I knew it, was probably dead.  I therefore didn’t put much credence in the rumblings of a “new album” and a “return to form” for the band.  I was therefore not too disheartened when the release date was pushed back from sometime in August (if I can remember correctly) to the first week in November.  I would still purchase it, but I was not nearly as excited for it as I was for KISS’s Monster or Soundgarden’s King Animal (out today!).

            What I got when I started listening to the album definitely sounded like a late 70s to mid 80s era Aerosmith.  I could easily see the first part of this album (up to the song “Street Jesus”) fitting in right after Pump or Permanent Vacation.  It definitely has a grittier, bluesier vibe than their contemporary albums, even the ballads in that section seem like standard Aerosmith ballads.  Nine Lives in the late 90s tried to get that vibe but failed (in my opinion) because it just felt too clean, like they were trying to merge Toys in the Attic’s rawness with the production value of Get a Grip.  Long story short, it was a good effort but did not entirely work.  Music From Another Dimension has a similar feel to it, yet it has definitely done a better job of trying to reconnect to that sound that made Aerosmith one of the biggest bands in the world back in the 70s. 

            What this album does more than anything is show the power and cohesion of the musicians themselves.  Joe, Brad, Tom and Joey are as tight a band as they have ever been and the best part about this album is hearing a group of accomplished musicians tear it up again.  Steven has lost a half step in his vocals, and cannot wail quite the way he used to, but he also doesn’t try as much as in the past.  This is way more evident in his live performances than the studio recordings (much the same as Paul Stanley from KISS, or any aging rocker I assume) and he does give it a go here, especially on some of the ballads.  The band shows that it can handle all kinds of music, from blues to ballads to country (a duet with Carrie Underwood that is not terrible, and probably one of the better overall songs on the disc) without a problem.  Joe Perry doesn’t have as many of the blistering guitar solos here that I have come to expect, and actually want to hear, from him.  He does a great job leading the band through the songs and Brad on the rhythm guitar as well as the rhythm section of Tom and Joey round out a solid band that shows they can still rock when given the opportunity.

            A quick side note about the “deluxe edition” with the three extra tracks and DVD: unless you really want to see the DVD, save your money and buy the regular edition of Songs From Another Dimension.  The extra disc with the bonus songs is definitely not worth the price but if you want to see the DVD, by all means throw down the extra $10.

            Here is the problem though, Aerosmith, in their current incarnation, are no dummies.  They know what made them popular in the 70s, and they also know what contributed to their resurgence in popularity in the 90s.  If you have been paying attention to the band for the last twenty years at least, you will know that I mean their ballads.  Each record of theirs has had a relatively slower song (“Dream On” from their self-titled debut, “You See Me Crying” from Toys in the Attic), but it wasn’t until they got back together in the mid 80s that they really started to make the ballad a focal point of every Aerosmith record.  For every rocker like “Eat the Rich” on Get a Grip you also get “Crazy”, “Cryin’”, “Amazing”, and even “Living on the Edge” to a certain degree.  Aerosmith knows that if they want to get on the radio, and subsequently increase their album sales, they need to appeal to more than just the old rockers and metalheads that grew up listening to Rocks in their parent’s basement.  While I expected ballads on this record, the amount on there are too many for my taste, especially given the publicity leading up to the record that this was the album that they had wanted to make since Done With Mirrors in the early 80s. 

Maybe what I said before, that Aerosmith as I knew it was dead, holds true.  Maybe they are no longer the band that threw a couple ballads out there to keep the girls happy, but were essentially a blues-rock band from Boston.  Maybe they are now a ballad-based band that throws a couple rockers (such as “Luv XXX” and “Legendary Child” on this album) in order to keep the older fans coming back.  You be the judge, and if nothing else go plug in your parent’s record player and relive the glory days.