Aerosmith, Rocks
Featured Album
Aerosmith's most densely packed, tightly coiled and cocksure blast
Nowhere on their fourth album does it feel like Aerosmith are reaching or grandstanding. That’s unusual enough for any band’s most acclaimed work; it’s more so from one that helped invent the power ballad three years earlier with "Dream On" and would become household names via MTV due to some of the windiest song-doctor assists of their era. Instead, Rocks, from 1976, is the sound of five guys at a peak of assurance. And not just because Steven Tyler honed his howling frontman persona yet further: see him rhyme "Tallahassee" with "sweet sassafrassy" on the funky "Last Child," or the way he attacks the thundering opener, "Back in the Saddle" even harder than his bandmates. It’s because the songs are packed so tight that they take multiple listens to unravel fully, while at the same time they're as immediate as your first shot of Jack Daniels. The real star is lead guitarist Joe Perry, who fluently handles everything from the heavy riffs of "Rats in the Cellar" to the solo of "Last Child," which presents him as a psychedelic colorist with a billowing sense of rhythm. But the album’s most propulsive moment is "Sick as a Dog": choppy riffs, loose groove, and a winking, arcing, falsetto "Pleeeeeaaaaasssse" that stands with any rock of the decade.
