Dokken-Broken Bones

Frontiers Records
2012

It's confession time again. Since it's good for the soul and all (or so they say) I should come right out and just admit that I didn't get into Dokken until much later in my life. While I of course knew the name I (shamefully I admit) wrote them of as another one of those limp-wrist hard rock acts back in high school. Looking back it had more to do with those who liked Dokken (the same group of kids that liked awful crap like House Of Lords) then with the band themselves. Such was the reason I missed out on such a great hard rock/metal act. It wasn't until sometime after my daughter was born that I heard a full album from the band. Soon enough I was searching out/enjoying albums as “Tooth and Nail”, “Under Lock and Key” and (to a lesser extent) “Back for the Attack” (although I find "Dream Warriors" to be killer). Even so I was/am more of a casual Dokken fan. I may have loved those classic albums, but I didn't bother to hear their last studio album, 2008's "Lightning Strikes Again". A quick run-down of the line-up shows founding members Don Dokken (vocals) and Mick Brown (drums) are involved along with guitarist Jon Levin ( despite rumors to the contrary George Lynch he is not folks!) and bassist Sean McNabb (Quiet Riot, House Of Lords, Rough Cutt, Great White). Now, given that this is their eleventh studio album it's only natural to expect some grey hairs to start to show right? Don Dokken is not the same man he was on those first couple of albums that I have enjoyed. That said he isn't bad or anything. It just sounds as if old age has caught up to him and, after years on the stage, his voice is starting to quiver a little. "Broken Bones" seems a fairly fitting title as this could be seen as Dokken with broken bones that have not healed properly. Is it a distraction though? Really, before we go any further I have to say that as it stands this is a fine hard rock album. It sounds as if Don (who I assume is the chief song writer?) has become rather reflective in his own age as a lot of these songs (at least to me with my own grey hairs starting to come in) seem heart felt. Maybe it's just that I carry a torch myself for very "personal" lyrics (I'd say it's a side-effect of growing older, but I've always found great meaning in lyrics and, thus, songs as a mirror reflection of life), but Don does seem as it he has opened up a little. Moving on to the music though and while Jon Levin might not be as good as George Lynch was/is he still lays down some tasty licks. Granted not much of this album really stands out, but as far as hard rock releases go this is above average materiel. I just wish it was something I could get more excited about about. When you put it side by side with their older material there is just no comparison. Maybe that is part of the release I couldn't get completely behind this. Having just listened to some older Dokken a week or so back (a mix I made) this seems flat by comparison music wise. I suspect if I had not listened to any of their older material before this showed up in my inbox then I would have enjoyed this a tad more. What it comes down to is die-hard Dokken fans will no doubt pick this up, but if you are a casual fan not so much. And, most certainly now, if you and never heard Dokken and were to say "hey, I should finally check out Dokken today" then it is obvious the place to start is with any of the following albums: “Tooth and Nail”, “Under Lock and Key” and “Back for the Attack”.

Best hair metal albums 10-6

The countdown rolls on.


10-Tigertailz-Bezerk-1990
Heaven is a horrible ballad, but the rest of the album  is impressive.


9-Cinderella-Long cold winter-1988
Their debut "Night songs" was run of the mill, but the three albums after that were very good.


8-Dokken-Tooth and nail-1984
They never came close to where they were for this album. Very solid effort.


7-WASP-s/t- 1984
Fantastic debut. I liked their later albums when they became more serious, but they were far more fun on the early albums.


6-Ratt-Out of the cellar-1984
All of Ratt's albums from 1983 to 1990 were good, but this is best one.

***The top five will be coming up soon.

Heavy Metal Thunderdome

Remember you are just judging by the music on this one.

It is...


Dokken-Tooth and nail


vs.


WASP-s/t

***Which album do you prefer?

Battle of the bands

Here you go.



Dokken

vs.



Quiet Riot

***Which band do you prefer?

Liberty n' Justice-Light it up

Retroactive
2010

Bass player/songwriter returns with a variety of supporting musicians to help him with his Christian hard rock album including current/former members of Def Leppard, Warrant, Stryper, Dokken, Firehouse, LA Guns and others. However one listen has me thinking of the Love Boat. You get a hodge podge of people that all did something kind of known in the past, but here they are kind of thrown together with so-so writing and not much direction. That's how much of this plays out. I read the credits to see who was coming next, but even normally good performers like Phil Lewis and Robert Mason sound less than inspired. I can't blame too much because most of the material is about as drab as it gets with plenty of warmed over riffs too. Many of the tracks are bland and they manage to seem twice as long as they really are. Out of fourteen tracks there were only two real standouts. The surprise one was "Wrestling with God" with Pete Loran and Steve Brown of Trixter plus Bumblefoot from G-n-R. Nothing wrong with Bumblefoot, but Trixter were one of the absolute worst abominations to unleash their no-talent, hair-sprayed selves on the hard rock world. However here they are part of a fairly catchy song with some striking hooks. Not bad at all. Now before I even removed this disc from it's sleeve I knew the song I was most interested in was "Drunk Dead Gorgeous" Marq Torien of the Bulletboys and Chris Holmes formerly of WASP. My interest was due to the fact that I am a huge WASP fan. Not that Holmes was ever great, but he was good and he played on most of WASP's best albums. He doesn't disappoint here either as the rhythms sound similar to WASP around the time of say "Inside the electric circus". However it's Torien who really sells this song. It's not the best written song, but he gets in there with voice, elevates the energy level and pulls everything he can from it. Fine track and performances indeed. Not a good album at all, but it was worth a listen just for that one song.

Clash of the album covers

Here are the choices.


Dokken-Beast from the east

vs.

Don Dokken-Up from the ashes

**Which cover do you prefer?

Lesser of two evils

Back in the 1980's the LA hard rock scene had more than it's share of bands pouring out and trying to make a name for themselves. Some like Motley Crue became huge while others fell by the wayside. Then there were the ones in between who sort of made it for a while or came close. The bands for today's contest come from this group and they are both actually older bands. We have...

Dokken-Back for the attack
vs.


Quiet Riot-3



Dokken had gotten some airplay and their videos had been shown on MTV. However around the same time Motley Crue had gotten huge and even Ratt had built their way up to being a headliner. Dokken were still opening act as they got ready to release their forth album. Quiet Riot were on a different track instead of slowly rising like Dokken. Kevin DuBrow considered this a different version of the band from the one with Randy Rhoads. Looking at it from that perspective the first album from this version was "Metal Health" in 1983 which was a huge hit. The band followed up fairly quickly with "Condition Critical" the next year. Personally I think it was a good album, but it didn't sell nearly as well as the previous effort. Like Dokken it was two years until they got around to their next album. Even though there was reason to believe these bands would put out good albums, but that just didn't happen. So lets get at them and see which one I could tolerate more.





Vocalists

Kevin DuBrow is up for Quiet Riot as he takes on Don Dokken. This is certainly not the finest moment for either vocalist. Quiet Riot tried to be something different on this album and really it was a failure. However the one aspect that clicked to some extent was Dubrow's vocals. It's pathetic material, but he makes a fine effort at trying to make it click. Don Dokken has always been a singer who has more range than personality. For me that makes him less memorable. He sounded good on the previous two albums, but here it's like the song run together and he seems to approach most of the songs the same. In the end he turns in a rather bland performance here.

Point to Quiet Riot

Guitarists

It's Carlos Cavazo for QR and George Lynch for Dokken. Cavazo was often considered a light weight and Lynch got the label guitar god or virtuoso. Okay, Cavazo deserved his label more than Lynch deserved his. Here it's as much Cavazo's playing that is at fault as it is the whole idea behind the album. What hard rock guitarist could sound good with so many synthesizers? Not many although that doesn't completely forgive Carlos from doing virtually nothing constructive here. Lynch had plenty of good moments on the previous two discs and his signature Mr. Scary is on this release. Still Dokken's album contains far too much filler and Lynch could have made a difference because he has the skill, but he didn't. So shame on him for spending more time on his tan and biceps than on his writing. Still he is the main factor behind the couple of good songs that are on here.

So point to Dokken

Rhythm section


For Quiet Riot is Frankie Banali on drums and Chuck Wright on bass going against Mick Brown and Jeff Pilson. Normally hard rock bands of the 80's seemed to be lacking in the rhythm section. However I actually think that Frankie Banali is a pretty good drummer, but unfortunately here he and wright both have their efforts absorbed into a big synthesized goop. Brown and Pilson had times where they were a decent duo. This time around I think the sound is smoothed more than normal, However the sound is still more coherent and more tolerable than on the QR album.

Point to Dokken


Disappointment factor

Both bands followed up decent albums in "Condition Critical" and "Under lock and key". The element that decided this category for me is the fact that while Dokken tried to be too smooth at least they tried to be hard rock. Quiet Riot were trying to cash on a synthesized rock that didn't benefit anyone. They would have hurt themselves less by not releasing any album until they had enough ideas to at least attempt a real hard rock album.

Point to Dokken


Who rocks more?

There are a couple of good songs on "Back for the attack" but it suffers from a definite lack of substance. The vocals and loud and Lynch's guitars whirl around here and there, but most of what we get is a lot of going through the motions. However that beats out Quiet Riot who through the effort of creating some of the most annoying excuse for hard rock to assault my unsuspecting ears in the mid 1980's. No wonder their mascot hid behind the band logo on this cover. I wouldn't want to show my face either if I had been involved with this mess.

Point to Dokken



Dokken win it fairly easily 4-1. Neither was a joy listening to and neither has aged well. Still I stuggled through and now I will likely not listen to either for some time.