REX BROWN-Smoke On This…

Steamhammer/SPV

Fans of Pantera, Down and more recent Kill Devil Hill know Rex Brown as the bassist of those bands and they might have read the book ‘Official Truth 101 Proof’ that he published about 4 years ago about the turbulent career of Pantera. Now Brown presents his first solo-CD but Pantera fans beware, it has got nothing to do with thrash of power metal. Brown has made a seventies rock album on which current Accept drummer Christopher Williams plays drums. Rex Brown himself produces the bass tones, rhythm guitar and the vocals. I must say that several songs are quite reasonable but it becomes painfully clear that Brown is not a singer. His material has quite a bit of variation on offer, from straight forward rock to more sophisticated stuff, but someone could have said to him: Rex, use someone else to sing. His voice is just dull and it damages the CD in such a way that ‘Smoke On This…’ is sometimes a painful and boring experience. He might have put in his heart and soul into this work but the fact remains that as a whole it just is not good enough.