Metal Reviews

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Excellent hard rock album, megacatchy tunes and nice riffing from Snake an Bolan. Sebastian (or Sebitchian if we are to believe the allmighty Sludge ) really shines here with the screams and wailing vocals. Skid Row always had more edge than most of their companions of the time. Definitely a landmark album of sleazy 80s big hair rock. Slave To The Grind even upped the ante in some respects.

A great late 80's metal album that is unfairly lumped in with the hair bands of the day

Now, I don't consider that so bad, since I actually liked some of the hair bands, and Skid Row's videos did air in rotation with those bands as well... hell, I still remember the first time I ever saw them: when the video for "Youth Gone Wild" first aired on a certain network that used to be good but isn't anymore (hint: three letters, beginning with M and ending in V), but I still think it's unfair given the "stigma" that exists for hair metal nowadays

Very good review and pretty spot on. One of the best debuts to ever e released. Some cheesy parts for sure but it's also heavier and more metal than it's given credit for. I agree that the band was so much better than a lot of the other bands in the genre. I'd out them up there with Guns n Roses(both short but sweet discographies), and up with the best from Whitesnake, Dokken, Tesla, Badlands and the vastly underrated Lillian Axe.

Last thing I want to say is that Slave to the Grind desperately need to be reviewed.

I also want to point out the releases without Bach are horrible but to me are not Skid Row.

I've contemplated doing Slave to the Grind as a classic, but I didn't realize that this album had already been reviewed. And not a classic. Hmm. That makes the argument a little harder. Slave to the Grind is an awkward album. It's mid tempo moments, I don't think, are for everyone. It has its ballads, but Mudkicker, Creepshow, and The Threat I have a hard time selling as amazing. I love the shit though.

Skid Row isn't a hair metal band, as much as they are a heavy metal band with Sebastian Bach and his luscious blonde mane at the helm. I would easily put them above the bands you mentioned, maybe not so easily over Whitesnake, but Skid Row's first two can't be topped by any two 'snake albums.

I love all three of the Skid Row albums with Bach on them, but they were definitely hair metal, my friend.

As for classic status, I'd probably say no. I'd rate this one a bit higher than 85, and I'd rate slave somewhere above 85 as well, with Subhuman Race probably being an 80. The reason I don't think they're classics though, is probably just that they were quite unoriginal. They were very good at what they did - excellent, even - but in essence it was built on a framework of stuff people were doing for the entire 80s before them.

EDIT: Oh, and I don't put them above G'n'R. Put simply, without G'n'R there would be no skid row.

I hate the term hair metal. I mean just because you have long hair you were lumped into that category WTF

Seriously bands like Iron Maiden had long hair back then are you going to lump them into hair metal?

Long, unkempt hair is much different than the teased, primped, and hair-sprayed hair of hair metal. Call it glam metal if you'd like. It has that very Bowie-esque androgynous glam to it. Then that opens up the awkward label of sleaze metal that is sometimes thrown around insofar as it is glam's excess minus the glam and some people throw Skid Row and GnR into that. But yeah, hair metal is a proper distinction insofar as the hair, appearance and spectacle of it all took precedence over the music. The distinction between earlier and later Crue of the 80s, for instance.