It’s been a week and two days since the album leaked, a week since it started to be sold in several countries, and last night was released all-around the globe. After
virtually only hearing these new songs for the past week, I finally think that I can give a review of the new Bon Jovi album “This House Is Not For Sale".
This band released in the 2000 some great albums that I absolutely love: Bounce, Have a Nice Day, and Lost Highway. The Circle was weaker, and What About Now lowered the bar a lot. After this album, Richie left, and we all feared that we’ll only have songs like Old Habits Die Hard on the new albums but, then, they released Burning Bridges and there was a little light at the end of the tunnel with great songs like Fingerprints, Who Would You Die For, or even We Don’t Run. That takes us to 2016 Bon Jovi, a band trying to be “reborn”.
I was scared before listening the album for the first time, but at the first time I just loved it. I usually love most the stuff this band does but this was great, I didn’t wanted to skip any part of this album while I was playing it. The lyrics had meaning, the production and mixing gave as a result a sound not as artificial as in What About Now, with some flaws, yes, but it was an improvement. Jon’s voice was really good in some songs like The Devil’s In The Temple, but the vocal takes weren’t good enough in some other songs like Roller Coaster. Still, the album had a great first impression on me. After hearing it, I turned to some frums and I was amazed with the ammount of people that actually loved the record as I did. I’ll be straight with you guys, I was waiting to go to Jovitalk and bash it like my life depended on it, I got great music instead.
I’ll just start with the track by track review:
1. This House Is Not For Sale: This song has been available for a while now, it was this album’s first and only single to the day. Has some good guitars but I don’t think it was a great first single choice.
6/10.
2. Living With The Ghost: Here is where the record starts to get interesting. This might be one of the best songs this band has ever written: great lyrics, and I absolutely love the feeling of it. As I said before, "Jon always says he wants to write positive lyrics, this is the way to do it", showing that no matter how hard things are you can move on. Can’t find a thing that I dislike about this one.
10/10
3. Knockout: This was the first promotional single, so we had a long time to spend with this song. Most people bash it, but I like it, this is the kind of song you don’t need to overthink. I hear it when hitting the weights at the gym. It tries to have an aggressive output but I believe that the mixing makes the song a little bland.
8/10.
4. Labor of Love: Another promotional single, the third if my memory don’t fail me. I won’t lie to you, I hated this song the first time I heard it. Somehow, after hearing the live version it started to grow on me.
8/10.
5. Born Again Tomorrow: Bon Jovi had already experimented with EDM influences before as we've heard on Take Back The Night (Burning Bridges) or even Burn With Me (What About Now outtake). This is the first time they've released one as an actual album cut and even as a promotional single. I truly believe this is the most radio friendly song in the record and should've been the first single. It has energy, it is catchy, and it's a nice song like it or not. Again, I believe a better mix could have taken it to it’s full potential. 8/10.
6. Roller Coaster: I love this one. Another midtempo with cheesy lyrics that makes me happy! If the vocals were better, specially in the chorus, I’d give it a 10 I swear, but right now for me it’s a
9/10.
7. New Year’s Day: This is a song that will grow on you, believe me. I disliked the snippet, I disliked the live versión, I didn’t care for it the first times I listened to it, but it eventually become one of the songs I played the most. It’s a nice “starting all over again” song with really positive vibes.
8/10.
8. The Devil’s In The Temple: The first real raw rock song of this album. Influenced with the conflict with their label, the lyrics have a lot f anger, and the output of the son is really aggressive. I really like this a lot and if I were to show a song from the album to most of my friends, this would be it. The ending is amazing but a guitar outro and maybe a final shout would’ve make this one a 10/10. I’ll give it a
9/10.
9. Scars On This Guitar: This one was love at first time when I heard the live versión from Tidal’s streaming. It has some beautiful lyrics, but I believe the studio versión is missing something the live one has. Lately, I’ve been playing the soundboard recording of the London Palladium show, as it sounds better.
8/10.
10. God Bless This Mess: This song isn’t bad by all means, it sounds good, but it really falls behind others on this album.
5/10.
11. Reunion: I hated the acoustic versión of this song, the live version did nothing for me, but this album cut isn’t bad at all. I like the mood again, but it’s not a song that I’d like to hear live.
6/10.
12. Come Up To Our House: The song that ends the album, and probably the song that’ll end a lot of setlists next tour. Someone said here that it sounds like a Christmas song, and it actually does.
7/10.
13. Real Love: Another piano song like we had Blind Love on Burning Bridges. I loved Blind Love and I do love this one too. The lyrics are beautiful and so are the arrangements.
9/10.
14. All Hail The King: The lyrics are interesting but the song itself does nothing to me.
5/10.
15. We Don’t Run: A different mix from the Burning Bridges song. To be honest, when it was released I disliked it. Then, it grew up on me as one of my favourite training songs. The original mix might be more radio friendly, and is actually the mix that I like the most as is more polished, but this one sounds aggressive and sounds better on this particular album.
7/10.
16. I Will Drive You Home: This song sounds like it could have been in Destination Anywhere and, I don't know about you, but to me that's a really good thing. It's beautiful and I really really like how it slowly starts building itself. The only thing I dislike is the ending that sounds too robotic for me. I'll give it a
9/10.
17. Goodbye New York: Everyone seems to really like this song but I find it too childish. Sounds like Bon Jovi trying to be 2015 Coldplay featuring Carly Rae Jepsen. Sorry but I can’t give any song that has lyrics saying “beep beep beep” when describing a truck in movement more than a
4/10.
18. Color Me In: This is a TIDAL-only exclusive song, so don’t be scared if you bought a physical copy that doesn’t have it. This is a slow song, but not in a ballad sense, in an actual slow song. I expected something really different but after giving it a few listens, I think that’s a good song and that actually has a mixing that suits it perfectly.
7/10.
19. Touch of Grey: The final bonus track. This song sounds like it was stolen from the Lost Highway sessions, it has a country-ish vibe all around it. And I love Lost Highway! The lyrics talk about trying to see things with other people’s eyes and understanding their point of view, some advice that a lot of guys here could take.
9/10.
Album songs score:
- Without bonus tracks: 7.3/10
- With bonus tracks: 7.9/10
- Overall album score: 8.5/10.
Why? Because this is one of the best albums from this band in a long time. The production, again, with some mixing issues doesn’t make some songs to be as great as they should be but almost every song is good and it has some great songwriting, and you can listen it all without skipping a track! Something really hard in an album with 19 songs. These guys have my full support again, and can’t wait to hear the new songs live. Also, loving the support and faith the band are giving and have on this record, with all the videos they’re releasing and the listening parties. Kudos to the band, the management, and the label for this.
Sent from my Galaxy S7 EDGE using Tapatalk
11-05-2016, 12:55 AM
