Hmmm, where to begin. Ok, I never "got" Guns 'n' Roses. Axle's nasaly, whiney, voice always drove me up a wall. And the band was mediocre at best. "Welcome to the Jungle" was a HOT rocker but that was it for me. Stone Temple Pilots? Another band the world would never miss.

Now that you know where I'm coming from. "Contraband" is a VERY good CORPORATE rock album. It's full of "riffs" and produced by the best in the business. With 14 tracks coming in at 1 hour in length it would have been even better had they trimmed it to say, 11 tracks @ 40 minutes?

If you like BIG, Dinosaurs stomping on your head, this could be your ticket to the next global extinction event. To be fair, this *is* a GOOD hard rock album. I could rip it apart if I wanted to but, there's no reason to do that. It's what it is and that's all that it is.

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