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Herald rating: * *
It's easy to scoff at Rock Star Supernova - the supposed super group selected by audition on the TV show of the same name.
You could never say former Motley Crue drummer Tommy Lee hasn't got top musical credentials. He's a great sticks man and an even better rock star.
However, the other two, former Metallica bass player Jason Newsted and one-time Guns N' Roses guitarist Gilby Clarke are tenuous rock'n'roll heroes - but proficient players nonetheless. And then there's peoples' choice, frontman Lukas Rossi. In retrospect, he was the ideal winner - an already preened frontman gagging to be, well, the frontman of a band.
Had Australian Toby Rand won he would have been too casual and meek, and raspy-voiced Dilana wouldn't have fitted in with the three blokes. And Tommy would have been trying to score her, anyway.
So the throaty, eyeliner-heavy Rossi it was. What's he like? And what is the album like?
It's better than Supernova host Dave Navarro's laughable Panic Channel album from a few months ago. But there's nothing here as memorable as Pretty Vegas and Afterglow by that other Rock Star franchise, INXS, with new frontman J.D. Fortune.
Rossi can holler, but his pleading vocals and cocky accent come across as try-hard and contrived most of the time, like on dreary opener It's On and on his own climactic ballad Headspin.
On his other co-written track, Social Disgrace, he shows he can slither and grind with the best. However, the big thing with Rossi is it's hard to know if it's sincerity or smugness, like when he chokes out his falsetto on Can't Bring Myself to Light This Fuse.
Elsewhere, there's something addictive about the musical swoon of It's All Love; Leave The Lights On is a raunchy blues rock that drags its heels to a seedy bedroom (thanks Tommy); and while the soulful stomp of The Dead Parade drags on, it shows promise.
But promise is not what you expect from this readymade band. You want them to rock, like the show - face it, you were addicted. But Rockstar Supernova the album is routine, and that's something rock'n'roll is not.
Label: Sony/BMG
