Artist: Dokken
Label: Sanctuary Records
Release Date: 7/13/04
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Title: Hell to Pay Artist: Dokken Label: Sanctuary Records Release Date: 7/13/04 |
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Abyss's Review:
I'm not sure I've ever felt less qualified to review an album as I do this one. You see, I never got into Dokken. Not even remotely. Now, don't get me wrong, I'm not going to go off and say how I was too cool and underground to listen to such commercial crap because that simply isn't the case. Dokken hit when I was in Middle School, and at the time I had yet to be exposed to the blossoming thrash scene that would eventually put me on a one-way crazy train to the heavier side of metal. It's a little shocking that I didn't like Dokken because at the time I was spending my time with bands like Def Leppard, Ratt, Motley Crue, and Twisted Sister. I still listen to select albums from these bands to this day. But even back then I thought Dokken were boring.
"One word review: Terrible." What made my dislike of Dokken even more confusing was that many of my friends who like 'real' metal remember them with a great deal of nostalgia. So to make a long story short (too late!), I just never got the Dokken thing, and it still confuses me to this day.
Regardless of whether you were a fan or not, I think most people will agree that this is a very poor album. From the songwriting to the performance to the production it's just one big, half-assed mess. The biggest problem is there just isn't any solid material to work with. The songs sound like they were hastily written and thrown together in time to make a deadline. The band doesn't find even a semblance of hook and the strongest songs here wouldn't even have made good bonus material twenty years ago.
The production is also a mess with the guitar sounding thin and impotent, possibly so as not to drown out Dokken's weak vocal performance. Don Dokken's voice simply has not held up, and it is obvious in many places that he's struggling despite the fact that he's not attempting anything all that difficult. Many parts should obviously have had additional takes done, adding to the perception that this album was hurried through the writing and recording process. I think even hard-core fans would have trouble disagreeing with me. One word review: Terrible.
Death's Review:
Let me set the stage for my opinion of this record with a bit of context. I remember being a little kid and actually liking the first couple of Dokken records. Breaking the Chains and Tooth and Nail were good records. I generally got into it for the guitar playing though. George Lynch was a great metal guitar hero back in the day. By the time Under Lock and Key came out though, things had changed. Dokken were by this point a straight-up hair metal band, and the tunes had become very commercial. It was at this point that I completely checked out. I still cringe to this day when I see old videos of Don Dokken fighting Freddy Kruger wearing a cowboy hat and a velvet-fringed coat.Through the years I’ve kept a lazy eye on Dokken, catching news snippets here and there as the lineup changes and what I presumed were a steady stream of bad albums whizzed by. I even saw the band live at a package tour stop in New Jersey somewhere along the way. But with no Lynch in the mix my interest was only passing. Then I read that bassist Jeff Pilson had left, and I couldn’t keep track of whether or not drummer Mick Brown was in the band or not. There were reports of fighting amongst members, and my general assessment from a distance was that all was not well with Dokken. I figured they had to be at this point just going through the motions.
"Hell to Pay is a good album." Apparently I was wrong. Hell to Pay is a good album. One of the band’s heavier records yet for sure. Far from a desperate attempt to milk past glories, and far from the out-of-touch bunch of has-beens grasping wildly at something that sounds relevant today, Dokken circa 2004 is actually a bunch of talented musicians playing well-written rock with an 80’s metal bite. Don Dokken sounds like he always did (you either like his voice or you don’t), and he sings with passion and even a certain aggressiveness at times. The tunes are catchy and I am surprised to say that after listening to them I now feel radio airplay probably wouldn’t be absolutely out of the question for this record if not for the fact that the Dokken name is so associated with out-of-date music. Perhaps with the right publicity push/spin, the Dokken name could become “cool” again, and Dokken could lasso fans of stuff like The Darkness and Velevet Revolver into thinking of them as retro chic. That is what the publicist was doing when Metal Sludge made fun of the Dokken press release touting the fact that the band played a radio show with Sevendust and Staind. Getting those fans to realize and respect Dokken’s place in formulating the modern melodic hard rock radio sound is the key to any commercial future this band might have. And Hell to Pay goes a long way to backing up this kind of spin.
Bottom line: If you’ve liked Dokken in the past, you definitely will like this album. Overall, it is probably one of the band’s better records of the last ten or fifteen years (although admittedly I haven’t really heard the others). It sounds confident and mature, not stale and desperate.
Hel's Review:
A new Dokken record? The hell you say? It's true, 2004 heralds the arrival of an all new Dokken album entitled Hell to Pay. Perhaps time has addled my brain, but I don't recall Dokken being limp-wristed "hard rock," yet that is indeed the best description I can come up with for what is currently emerging from my speakers. Talk about a band losing their edge...
"Hell to Pay is utterly crap-tacular." There came a moment when I fully realized how wimpy this album is - I reached the last track, and while it is not really noticeably "softer" than the rest of the record, the track is titled, "Care for You (Unplugged)" - in my opinion, if you cannot make a strong distinction between the plugged and unplugged songs on a record, there's a problem. Ok, so I'll admit I'm being a tad unfair here - the rest of the album has electric guitar and this one does not - but the reason they all sound the same to me is the vocals. Don delivers all of them in the same wispy, un-aggressive fashion.
Back in the day, I remember owning Tooth and Nail and really enjoying it. But then, I was very, very young at the time. I lost interest in the band shortly thereafter, and the band fell off my radar entirely, before ultimately breaking up and then reforming in the mid-90s. While my tastes have certainly changed since the old days, I came into this record thinking that perhaps this would be a fun, nostalgic jaunt. Unfortunately, this simply isn't the same band I remember, therefore, there is little nostalgia evoked. And I certainly didn't find it fun. I give the band bonus points for still hanging around and making records, presumably someone somewhere is still buying and enjoying them. I, however, am not one of them. Hell to Pay is utterly crap-tacular.
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