The Joe Perry Project were actually formed whilst Perry was still a member of Aerosmith. At the time, the Aero ones were all off their relative faces on all sorts of exotic substances, and the record company were at loss to know what to do with them. The label CBS openly encouraged Perry to do this project hoping it would give Tyler a boost to get him up and rockin’ again. With Perry being on the same label, it would be easy to bring him back when the time was right.
As you would expect, the music does have the same vibe as the Aero ones – but with a lot more Joe. The first and title track is such a great song, that when Perry went back to Aerosmith, Tyler could not wait to sing it live. Vocalist Ralph Morman has a great voice and suits these songs perfectly. Conflict Of Interest could have been a Smith outtake – it’s that close. Discount Dogs has a real funky swagger until the cool time change for the chorus – with some killer Joe guitar. Shooting Star has the real big riff to start and could have been a Smith song. Side closer, Break Song, is an instrumental, and is one of my favourite Aerosmith related tunes – this bad boy is all groove and plenty of Joe. Freakin’ awesome tune!
Side 2 kicks off with the funky tones of Rockin’ Train – a seriously groovy tune. Next up is The Mist Is Rising, and with the very dissonant guitar sound it comes over as a very sleazy song. Ready On The Firing Line seems to be missing a lead off riff, and is a bit jumbled until the funky chorus. Life At A Glance brings the album to a close, and is just a short sharp fun rock and roll song that wouldn’t have been out of place on Toys In The Attic. There were two more project albums after this and they had some good tunes, but this was the best by a mile.
8.5/10 from The Grooveman.
