Extreme – Saudades of Rock

Extreme’s new album, 13 years after the what we thought was the last of the Boston-based funk-hard rock band starts with the single “Star”s vocal harmony intro, and you instantly know that this album is going to be ‘bigger than Venus and Mars’. The tip of the hat to traditional Extreme influences Queen and Van Halen is so clear and evident that you’re left wondering if this was 1993 all over again.

Ladies and gentlemen, Extreme is back, well, most of it anyway. Three of the four original members of the band, with new drummer from DramaGods Kevin Figueiredo, reunite to bring to this age of emo music where Chris Cornell and RATM stage the mediocre-at-best Audioslave, and some seriously weird shit is going on with Velvet Revolver, some really original, and trademark music. That Extreme have always worn their influences on their sleeve is known to all, and the Extreme sound that has grown to be ballady, funky, and tubthumpingly heavy is all over the track.

“Comfortably Dumb” has an Audioslave-like riff pumping through the track, only with much better lyrics, and Nuno Bettencourt shows you why he is the Mack Daddy of all things funky in music today. What push the song further are some dark lyrics, seemingly full of self loathing a la Nirvana.

Another song with some seriously dark lyrics, combined with some stellar harmonies on the vocals by Guy Cherone and Bettencourt is “Last Hour”. This one is like a 60s-rock song, with a very “House of the Rising Sun” feel to it, but only heavier.

“Flower Man” is a fun song that starts out like a Van Halen track on crack, with lyrics that speak of war and peace and of Lennon.
For me, the best song on the album, along side “Comfortable Dumb” is the very, very Zeppelinesque “Slide”. The infectious groove all through the song with Cherone’s wail hits you harder than a freight train straight from hell. The weakest song on the album is the piano driven “Ghost”, although the chorus has a nice hook. The lyrics are way too corny for the song’s own good.
The strongest facet of the album is that it has a little something for everyone, and even though it seems like a nice mixture of everything that Extreme have stood for over the years, it doesn’t look like an aimless mess, much to our relief, after Audioslave’s Revelations.