10 years after his last trip to the studio, Sebastian Bach is back with his new album "Child Within the Man", accompanied by class acts such as Devin Bronson (Avril Lavigne), Todd Kerns (Slash) and Jeremy Colson (Steve Vai).
The cover is so bad that I thought it was made by someone on Facebook when I first saw it, but hey, it's the official one. The album was recorded in Florida and produced and mixed by Baskette; Seb wrote or co-wrote all the album’s 11 tracks and sang all lead and backing vocals.
I have mixed feelings about "Child Within the Man". I'm not a fan of the production, for instance, a little too modern for my taste and the vocals are too heavily produced, for my taste. Seb sings amazingly in the opener (previously released as a single) "Everybody Bleeds", with a superb chorus and fantastic guitar solo (a constant for the entire album). The robust "Freedom" follows (great guitars by John 5) and "(Hold On) to the Dream", released as a single as well.
Among my favourites there is "What Do I Got to Lose?", a pure fun song, co-written with Myles Kennedy and released at the end of 2023. Something that can be related to Skid Row in terms of mood. As a first single, I hoped the entire album was like this, but the direction of the album is a little different. I like also "Vendetta" (the best chorus of the album and great finale) and "F.U.", which is fun to listen to and more straightforward than other songs. "Hard Darkness" could be an Ozzy song from the 90s (great rhythm section!) and "About to Break" is almost pop during the verses and with a very interesting chorus (and an amazing solo section).
There is the final ballad, almost a trademark by the blonde singer, but this time "To Live Again" is not really what I expected in terms of performance (I really don't like the vocal mix on this one) and inspiration but it's something different within the album (and it's got a killer solo!) so I don't want to complain too much
"Child Within the Man" is the album you expect by Sebastian Bach, with some very cool songs, great vocals, and overall solid but I think the combo Skid Row + Seb was something else, a perfect match, especially in terms of songwriting and my expectations are therefore constantly very high for this reason.
Top tracks: "Everybody Bleeds", "What Do I Got to Lose?", "Vendetta".
Skip tracks: "Crucify Me".
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