Rating: NN
It was a beautiful dream that VelvRev’s debut would be a masterpiece on par with the Bible. That dream is dead, stomped by this merely semi-rocking debut from the five-piece. The songs sound like they could be sheer rock madness live, but the energy is only sporadically there on Contraband. Perhaps this is because they included material from a few different recording sessions, and the presence of Weiland producer Josh Abraham may have made the disc lean toward a sound that is often closer to STP than to the harder elements that Slash, Duff, et al., bring to the table that was once covered in cocaine. Their next album must rock much harder, or we may force them to get off the wagon.
