Black Stone Cherry reviewed
Black Stone Cherry
Black Stone Cherry
(Roadrunner)
Advertised as back-to-basics hard rock, if Black Stone Cherry really admired their heroes they’d show a little ingenuity.
This self-titled debut is a flaccid mix of meathead grunge, cock rock swagger, and gravel-voiced hooks couched in remedial melodies. Everywhere you think there’ll be a guitar solo, there is. Every invocation of classic rock mythology rings hollow (a gypsy woman? You once met a blind man? COME ON!). Black Stone Cherry are so inept they manage misusing clichés (“Walk through hell and high water”?), and Chris Robertson’s Ronnie Van Zant-meets-Daniel Johns howl *should have soul but ends up sounding like an imitation. The root of great hard rock comes from authenticity; it can’t be forged.
— Steve Forstneger
Appearing: August 2nd at Canopy Club in Urbana.
