Saliva "Blood Stained Love Story" (5.5/10)
by: tessamae
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1. Ladies And Gentlemen
2. Broken Sunday
3. Never Gonna Change
4. King Of The Stereo
5. One More Chance
6. Going Under
7. Twister
8. Black Sheep
9. Starting Over
10.Here With You
9/10 Kaj Roth / Melodic.net
You haven't heard Saliva this melodic, I think some fans might think they are too poppy on "BSLS" but I must say that I love this sound so much that I wanna say it?s their best album so far. You get the typical Saliva riffs on excellent tracks like "King of the stereo" and "Black sheep", the radio ready "Going under" sounds like a super hit in my ears and the unbelievably catchy "Twister" will knock you down for sure. One of my favorite tracks is "Broken sunday" that features some amazing harmonies that puts Saliva back on the throne of modern rock. Stunning!
6.5/10 Brandon Ratliff / The 411
Blood Stained Love Story is about on par with Saliva's past efforts, as the band really never does a whole lot to change their tried-and-true formula. Chris Dabaldo's absence is felt in the slightly generic guitar riffing on most of the album, but Swinney does a decent enough job on his own. His leads are still solid and not quite as overdone as on Survival Of The Sickest, but otherwise the music, save for Crosby's excellent drumming rarely rises above a passable level. Josey Scott picked up a lot of lyrical slack this time around though, and the theme running through the album is just well balanced enough to not be overbearing, but still fairly apparent. The album overall isn't anything new for Saliva, but did you really expect that? Fans will be pleased enough, and as I've said before, that's all you can ask for at the very least. Still, it's an enjoyable listen, so it could have been a lot worse right?
6/10 Wes Derby / Associated Content
The lead single, "Ladies and Gentlemen", is slated to be used as the theme music for an upcoming WWE pay-per-view event this spring. The song has the rap-rock feel of some of their earlier rap-rock material which launched them into the spotlight, such as "Superstar" and "Your Disease" from the "Every Six Seconds" release. Though not their best song, it's a very solid lead single which has been receiving play at rock and alternative radio since late last year and is enjoying great success on the Active Rock charts. Personal favorites for me include the hard-rocking "Black Sheep", the mid-tempo ballad "Here with You", and "Starting Over", a song anyone who's ever been through a break-up or another rough patch in life can easily relate to. The only song I can honestly say I would've left off the CD is "King of the Stereo", which is currently getting airplay on XM Satellite Radio's Squizz channel. It's not a bad song as far as rap-metal goes, but I know Saliva could've come up with something better. In fact, there are nine better tracks on this CD.
5/10 Andrew Blackie / PopMatters
The painfully unnecessary first single “Ladies and Gentlemen”, a third-rate downtuned distortion-fest, the verses aren’t so much sung as spoken… in a monotonous swagger. This evolves into a suspiciously P.O.D.-esque chorus of shouting and bombast; “You are about to be bowled over”, Scott screeches self-importantly –- look who just made a funny! For most of the rest of the disc, maturity proves the determining factor, and the music’s really not that bad if you can get past the eye-rolling three chords. Cuts like “Broken Sunday”, “Twister” and the aforementioned “Going Under” make use of soaring choruses and put likable, easy-on-the-ear melodies to good effect over churning guitars. It’s not the first option you’d want to check out if you’re looking for the best of what’s on radio, therefore; but if this is already your type of music and you’re willing to sit through the plain awful among the tentatively good, then it may well satisfy; which, come to think about it, is kind of a take it or leave it circumstance. Nobody’s going to miss them if they decide to disappear completely after this release, but it could be worse -– at least they’re not Nickelback!
4/10 Christan Hoard / Rolling Stones
The fourth album from this Memphis quintet rocks like a motherfucker, tosses in atmospheric keybs and shimmery sound effects, and drops a couple of slow ones. But there's no remedy for crappy arena metal like "Ladies and Gentlemen" and mushy radio filler like "Starting Over."
4/10 Bill Clark / Bullz-Eye
The record is a rollercoaster of mediocre to decent to flat-out awful tunes. The album kicks off with “Ladies and Gentlemen,” a big, fat arena tune that actually has a decent lead riff. This is as aggressive as Saliva gets on this offering. Sure, the lyrics are awful (“Ladies and gentlemen / Boom! / Do you want it / Boom! / Do you need it / Boom! / Let me hear it”), but at least they act like they still have interest in busting some balls. “Broken Sunday” has a nice, crunchy riff, a suitable solo, and a fun ‘80s influence. Then, the inevitable happens. Track three is “Never Gonna Change,” the first of several boo-hoo love songs that turn the stomach. The lyrics for this song seriously read like the scrawling a rejected high school kid makes during study hall. The remaining four songs are all forgettable, but “Black Sheep” is so bad that you just might end up remembering it. With by far the most poorly written lyrics on the album, a distortion disaster on the guitar end, and heinous vocals. Saliva was once a band that had some potential, but they have chosen to stay in their tried-and-true formula of monotony and boredom – at least since “that Spider-Man song.” The group is probably too far in to dig themselves out with any future releases, and that’s really a shame. All hail crass commercialism.
4/10 Greg Maki / Live-Music
The result is a wildly unfocused album that features Saliva at its best and, more often, worst. The disc begins in dramatic fashion with the first single, “Ladies and Gentlemen.” Its spoken verses and rollicking chorus show more invention than the other nine tracks combined. It feels like the introduction to a great piece of work as Scott boasts of something “like nothing you’ve ever seen before.” To say that this promise goes unfulfilled is an understatement. Scott returns to rapping on “King of the Stereo” and “One More Chance,” while the band plays without a hint of intensity. The guitar solos that were so essential to Survival of the Sickest are mostly absent; those that made the cut are merely cosmetic. Many of the songs are bulked up by unnecessary electronic loops. The band has taken a colossal step back, delivering an album of nondescript radio-friendly tunes. Scott has gone from singing about a “rock n’ roll revolution” and spitting wicked barbs at Nickelback and Default to asking, “Why can’t I be normal like everyone else?” on “Going Under,” one of Blood Stained Love Story’s many ballads and a song that bears a disturbing resemblance to something you might hear from REM . The poppy, upbeat “Twister” is an embarrassment. But then it’s followed by “Black Sheep,” the heaviest song the band has ever recorded and a reminder that they are the same guys you heard about a half-hour earlier on “Ladies and Gentlemen.” It’s hard, though, to believe Scott as he proclaims himself “an outlaw straight from birth” and “the black sheep of the family” when you’ve just heard the sickeningly sunny “Twister.”
2/10 Porter W. Richards / SputnikMusic
Blood Stained Love Story may be one of the worst records ever recorded. They've taken a step towards the mainstream, but this album is so bad that mainstream rock radio stations didn't even pick it up. Saliva should have stayed dead. There's so many songs that just make your ears bleed. From the unbelievably pointless opener Ladies and Gentlemen, to the ballad Here With You, Blood Stained Love Story manages to be worse than mediocre. It's terrible. They lost the hard rock edge they had before with previous albums and managed to throw countless ballad after ballad at you. The songs all sound alike. Saliva's Blood Stained Love Story has officially put Saliva among the lists of the worst bands ever. Completely dropping anything that made them unique, they put out an album that manages to be bland, unbearably boring, and unnecessarily filled with slow, nu-metal love ballads. Not to mention it sounds like anything that was on the radio 3 years ago. Saliva; your genre is dead. This album was the most drawn-out, pointless waste of time I have ever set my ears upon.
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