Slave To The Grind (studio album) by Skid Row (US)

From jeremy9 11/30/2020 08:41

One of the Best Metal Album of the '90s

This album rocks, and managed to still be a success despite being released in the middle of the grunge explosion. Far heavier and more interesting than the usual hair metal stuff, that’s probably what helped Skid Row from being destroyed by the grunge scene (it still happened, but they survived longer than the others) Sebastian Bach gives his best vocal performances here, and probably the best vocal performances in the hair metal genre EVER. The guitar solos are on point all around, even if some of the riffs leave much to be desired. Unfortunately, with the exception of livin in a chain gang, the singles are the strongest songs.

From stefano 11/22/2017 15:32

A nice hard rock album, with a heavier and more powerful sound than the previous album.It rocks!

From RockyRaccoon 01/07/2015 20:01

This was the album where Skid Row said "Hair metal? Screw that. HEAVY METAL"

Probably the heaviest album released during the hair metal era from a "hair metal"-labeled band.

Mo' cowbells!

Nah, just kidding. Their best effort I'm sure but from what I've heard these guys truly rocked live. In my experience that's a rare thing.

I've seen too many bands to come on stage and play their set like it's 9-5 job. I totally understand why some folks might much prefer just doing their music at home and in the studio and there's nothing wrong with that.

In fact one of my favorite artist was famous for never playing gigs. I was just grateful that it didn't stop him from writing his music. That's all that really matters in the end.

Live gigs can easily end up as a total mess. Venues might not work sonically. Technology might not work. Or tech crew might not know what they are doing - or they simply don't have a genuine chance to make the needed changes. This is particularly true in big festivals where smaller bands who open for bigger acts might have to use other gear than their own and settings that are locked in place for the evening's biggest draw.

And the audience can be a total bitch too of course. A lot of people are too wasted to even remember they even saw a gig and of course quite a few of them literally saw nothing much at all.

And some bands - or more justifiably some aspect of it (usually live singing) - just tend to suck live. It could be a matter of lacking skills in the first place or just a matter of a having a bad day when absolutely nothing goes as planned. Or they might simply be too sickly to rise up to the challenge.

Quite possibly - particularly in huge festival settings - in 9 cases out of 10 you'd really have been sonically better off if you had stayed at home and just put on a quality headphones instead. This way you could hold on to the illusion that the band doesn't have to "dumb down" their playing because of lack of chops and/or hearing the singer being constantly out of breath because s/he still hasn't bothered to take lessons that would likely enable him/her to breathe more effortlessly when singing.

Good live singers truly are few and far between.

It's just not particularly enjoyable experience when one has to mentally continually keep thinking along the lines that "oh, please god/spagetti monster don't let them fuck this up now" or "oh, please god/spagetti monster make it so just this one time that they could actually play live well".

Sebastian Bach really commands a tremendous voice and I appreciate him for having bothered to learn his trade.

Just love their version of Hendrix's Little Wing off B-Side Ourselves EP. It's a great introduction where these guys came from musically.

But honestly Bach would have deserved much better songs to sing in his heyday, IMO. Without his singing I'm not sure if anyone would have paid much attention to yet another cliched hard rock band that was called Skid Row.