As many of you read, I had an exciting time seeing Velvet Revolver a couple of months ago. At this show, I got to hear 4 Libertad songs, and it was quite an introduction.

Since I exist on a diet made up of a lot of indie bands, it can be a bit of sensory overload to hear a clean, produced album. It’s like watching HDTV, when your eyes can’t believe how clearly they’re seeing.

Libertad is the perfect choice of titles for this effort. Their second album as Velvet Revolver, it frees them from some of the perceptions of the supergroup, patchwork identity of two bands meshed together. It also marks a more sober period in the drug and alcohol riddled pasts of Weiland and Slash. I won’t go so far as saying that sober bands suck in comparison to their chemically enhanced pasts…but they’re, you know, different.

Libertad is missing a ballad of Fall to Pieces status (Gravedancer is nice, but doesn’t quite do it for me), and the grittiness of Do It For the Kids. The album is more consistent across the board- fast paced, high energy rock tracks that highlight Slash’s forever phenomenal guitar skills. I tend to listen to the first four tracks: Let It Roll, She Mine, Get Out the Door, and She Builds Quick Machines…and then skip to American Man. I expect I’ll like it better once I hear the other tracks live, since that’s how I work. I have to hear it in context.

And, in related news, Slash will be an unlockable character in the next Guitar Hero. Sweet!