I had the pleasure of seeing Jason Newsted perform as part of the Gigantour last month and he was incredible and I have been eagerly awaiting his full album release since I heard the 4 track EP this past spring. If you don't know who Newsted is, then stop reading this for a second, go google his name and when you realize who he is come back, I'll wait. Back? Good, now I'll get on with it.
The album released on Aug. 6 on iTunes (and probably other places too, I just don't get my music anywhere else honestly) and I immediately sat and listened to the whole thing all the way through. Overall it's a very good album. Not great, but very good. There are some skip-able songs on the cd, mainly on the slower ones where his limited vocal range seems to show itself more clearly. Now, I know that sounds harsh to say, but it is true. This is his first time being the front man and lead vocals for a group. He did perform lead vocals on Metallica songs occasionally, but that was only one or two songs. He did almost no vocal work with Echobrain that I can tell and I haven't listened to Voivod during his time with them to know what he did or didn't do. My point in all of this (yes, I do have one) is that despite his many years in the music industry this is a new experience for him and I'm willing to give him a lot of credit for that. He is still (and will always be) in my top 5 bass players and one of the reasons I picked up a bass for the first time.
So what are the highlights of the album? Well, the two songs from the EP that made it in are two of my favorites "Soldierhead" and "King of the Underdogs" are both really good, solid songs both lyrically and musically. I would also place "Heroic Dose" and "The Differents" in that top tier as well. "The Differents" has this kind of bluesy feel to it and is one of the "slow" songs to actually sound good. With the exception of "Nocturnus" and "Futureality" the rest of the album is really good. Those two songs though are pretty much an instant skip IMHO, I just don't like them at all.
Overall I'd give this album a B+. It's good, it's got the ground work though to be even better. I just hope this brings him better fortune than his last couple of endeavors so that we can have more music from a very talented artist.