Album Review. Saliva - 10 Lives (2018)

Hi everyone!

I continue a review-series of new releases in the world of rock music. And this time I want to tell you about recently submitted an album of American rock band Saliva.

When Josey Scott decided to pursue a solo career and left the post of Saliva's frontman, most fans suggested that the band’s story ended there. And such thoughts are logical, because for almost twenty years of the group’s existence it was simply impossible to imagine someone more suitable at helm of team. Despite this, Saliva continued to exist, finding a new voice for its music.

We heard vocalist Bobby Amaru on “Love, Lies & Therapy” (2016), the ninth studio-tape, which many have called "band's worst album". Despite the fact that Bob has excellent vocal abilities and he do his parts as best he could, fans were not satisfied with material presented. I think that this is partly due to the fact that Bobby is not Josey. In any case, mediocre alternative studio work is last thing we expected from Saliva. Therefore, I was skeptical and even with caution to news about their release of 2018.

The album with symbolic name "10 Lives" is a typical hard-rock work with a standard formula for writing texts. Love, drugs and other pressing problems plaguing souls of millions songwriters.

The songs sound average even there are even attempts to imitate previous work with Scott. But for some reason, having mastered half of material, it seems that the album is slowly sliding down.

In general, I will be brief. This album is not too different from previous work and rather even continues marking in one place. There is no core in it that saves all this musical insanity. Listening song by song, making sure of it again. Listen exclusively to familiarize yourself with the material. I cannot single out any work, since they all sound good, but not at level of a group that has been playing for more than two decades.

Saliva has an excellent musical potential and decades of invaluable experience, but so far they have used it occasionally. Standardization of music does not single them out from masses, but rather drowns them in the swamp of modern musical slag. It is a pity, because Amaru has a unique timbre of voice, with which guys can experiment tirelessly with, say, southern rock or other more interesting genres than the alternative.

It's unclear why group left Saliva brand. Only Wayne Swinny remained from original line-up. This is a different music, other priorities, even a completely different fan base. After all, if team took a different name - everything could have gone much better. In general, if you simply do not compare the album with the early work of Saliva - you can listen. But if from “Love, Lies & Therapy” I left two songs in my player for myself, then all fourteen tracks from “10 Lives” will probably just be forgotten.

Thank you for your attention and support of the content!

See you soon and have a nice day!