When I took the plastic wrapper off the debut album from Velvet Revolver, the supergroup collision of Weiland from Stone Temple Pilots, and the supporting cast from Guns and Roses my palms dripped with sweaty anticipation of greatness and sugar plums danced in my head. I'd heard the first single "Slither" for months now, and I absolutely love that damn song. I wished against all wishes that what I was about to hear would not disappoint. Well, shit in one hand and wish in the other my grandmother always said, and sadly the hand holding the shit was a good bit more heavy than the one holding the wishes (and they were heavy wishes). I'm not going to say that Contraband is awful, but it is an awfully big disappointment nonetheless.

Weiland the Velvet Revolver rock star likes to say fuck. A LOT. But not in a cool nonchalant kind of way, but in a poseurish, "look what I can say now that I'm in a REAL rock n' roll band kind of way." And the lyrics that accompany his colorful phrases are full of big dumb rock clichés. On the opener "Sucker Train Blues," Weiland hollers the dreadful line 'Somebody raped my tapeworm abortion, come on motherfuckers and deliver the cow' to my absolute disdain. This is just a taste of the lyrical stupidity that fluidly flows from Contraband. Luckily the music that accompanies Weiland's awful lyrics is a godsend. Slash, Duff, Matt, and the other guy that ain't Izzy create a hard rock spectacle that's hard to argue with. Slash wows throughout with amazing guitar work that anyone else would be loathe to hold a candle to, especially on tracks like "Set Me Free" and "Dirty Little Thing." Slash is like a man on a mission, and musically on Contraband the mission is accomplished.

Unfortunately though, "Slither" is by far the best all around song on Contraband, and throughout the rest, Weiland just seems to drag down these other rock stalwarts. He isn't up to the challenge of being the hard rock manGod that you might've expected, he turns out to be the "contra" in the band and makes what could have been a one-off masterpiece into something of a weak forgery.