Music
[Album Review] Slash ‘Apocalyptic Love’
Review by Chris Lockett: In 2010, former Velvet Revolver and Guns N’ Roses guitarist Slash released what I would consider to be one of the worst solo albums of all time. The debut album, simply entitled Slash, consisted of the guitarist collaborating with a different singer/songwriter for every song. The results were inconsistent to say the least, and almost all of the songs were completely forgettable. Luckily however, Slash seems to have seen the error of his ways as well, and decided to recruit Alter Bridge and Mayfield Four vocalist Myles Kennedy, to be the lone singer/songwriter on his latest solo outing, entitled Apocalyptic Love. The results are certainly much more consistent this time around, but is the music more interesting? Hit the jump to find out!
First off, I’m going to start out by saying that Apocalyptic Love is A LOT better than 2010’s Slash, however, I wouldn’t get excited just yet, because that’s like saying that Apocalyptic Love is better than the latest Nickelback album. As in, it couldn’t possibly be any WORSE than 2010’s Slash. Anyways, moving on.
The album is a mixed bag to say the least. There are a couple of great songs, and a few good ones, but unfortunately those only make up about half of the album. The other half is chock full of forgettable filler tracks that even after a few listens, did absolutely nothing for me. There are only two ballads on this 13 track album (“Not For Me”, and “Far and Away”) both of which are beyond boring, drawing no genuine emotion and lacking a proper build up. Other wastes of time include the Southern-Rocker “Standing In The Sun”, which starts off promisingly until the chorus hits and the song immediately takes a trip to bland city. “Halo” is one of the more memorable songs on the album, but for all the wrong reasons, featuring one of the most annoying choruses from any song in recent memory. And finally, the interestingly titled “Hard and Fast”, as well as the album’s final track “Shots Fired”, only serve to go in one ear and out the other, leaving no evidence that they ever existed.
Take my advice and skip the aforementioned tracks. They only serve to draw out, and come close to destroying what I would consider to be a pretty decent album (which would have been better off as a lengthy EP). Album highlights include the fast-paced, speed limit defier “One Last Thrill”, the lengthy riff rocker “Anastasia” which features Slash’s considerable talents more than any other song on the album, and finally the very 80s sounding “Bad Rain”, which contains the catchiest chorus on the album.
The rest of the songs are merely decent. For instance, the title track, “Apocalyptic Love”, pulls you in from the get go with a groovy riff, but then throws in a bit of an underwhelming chorus. The album’s first single, “You’re A Lie”, contains a similar problem, starting off with an awesome toe tapping guitar riff that leads into a bland first verse, followed by a slightly better chorus. As for the other two songs on the album, “No More Heroes” and “We Will Roam”, they’re solid throughout, but never really try to be anything other than solid. In other words, they’re entertaining enough, but pull all of the punches that you figured they would.
Lyrically the album is more or less what you’d expect from Myles Kennedy. The lyrics are very basic and almost never have any underlying meanings or messages. It’s all very by the books, and extremely predictable.
Production wise the album is very clean sounding, and is completely devoid of any flubs. It really is way too polished for its own good, lacking any of the grit and rawness that a good hard rock record should have. And to make matters worse, not only is it too clean sounding but, at the end of a lot of the songs, there’s unnecessary drum stick clacking as well as gratuitous talking and the obligatory “one, two, three, four” leading into the next track, that are only there to create a false sense of rawness. So not only did the band along with producer Eric Valentine decide to polish the shit out of their record, but they also decided to insult their listeners by trying to make them believe that they are about to listen to some down and dirty Rock N’ Roll, when in fact it ends up being the opposite.
The Bottom Line: While I can’t say that I’m disappointed with Apocalyptic Love (I wasn’t expecting much going in), I can’t say that I’m pleasantly surprised with it either. Aside from a couple of really good songs as well as few decent ones, a good half of this album is a complete wash, full of songs that are completely forgettable and boring, (hm… much like an Alter Bridge album). And isn’t it funny that the album is being marketed as Slash featuring Myles Kennedy and The Conspirators, when “The Conspirators” are really just a couple of session musicians. And when you look at it like that, you come to realize that the only two creative forces on this album (excluding Eric Valentine) are Slash and Myles Kennedy. The fact that neither of them are very good songwriters ends up being this albums downfall. Slash is an excellent guitarist, but he’s only able to shine when he’s working with a songwriter who is able to match his talents, and unfortunately Myles Kennedy is not that songwriter.
Multi-award-winning and unapologetically cinematic UK band The Last Dinner Party have always seemed drawn to the places where opposites collide. Beauty and violence. Grief and ecstasy. The sacred and the grotesque. It’s there in their music, performances, and in the worlds they’ve built around themselves since the band’s earliest days.
Their songs often feel less like traditional rock music and more like myths in motion, unfolding somewhere between a dream, a film, and a fevered memory. Perhaps that’s why horror feels so naturally at home within their creative universe.
For Abigail Morris, the group’s charismatic ringleader, some of horror’s most enduring filmmakers understand that terror becomes more powerful when it exists alongside beauty.
Discussing the work of Dario Argento, she points to films like Suspiria and Phenomena as perfect examples of that tension.
“I think it’s actually the proximity of those things rather than the distance,” Morris explains. “The things that are really beautiful and the things that are really terrifying. It’s like the idea of the sublime. The closer that beauty is to terror, the more beautiful it is and the more terrifying it is rather than the juxtaposition. I think that that’s where the sweet spot of fear and tension and intrigue and pure and real beauty is, where it’s almost the other. And I think that’s what Argento does really well with the sort of the beautiful casting and the sets and the lighting and then the buckets of red blood.”
She cites Argento’s ability to place stunning imagery directly beside the grotesque or unsettling. The vivid colors, dreamlike sets, and beautiful performers suddenly interrupted by buckets of blood, swarms of insects, or moments of genuine nightmare.
“I love how he plays with that,” she says.
That fascination with contradiction extends far beyond horror films. The Last Dinner Party’s work frequently occupies a similar emotional space, where longing can feel catastrophic, and heartbreak transforms into mythology. Morris brings up one of her favorites, Andrzej Żuławski’s Possession (1981), as another example of horror expressing emotional truths more accurately than realism ever could.
“A divorce is a very human thing that happens,” she says. “And then to turn that into this psychological body, spiritual, eldritch horror is how it must feel to go through a divorce. And it’s more accurate.”
Not surprisingly, news of the upcoming Possession remake sparked a passionate response. “I’m fucking furious,” Morris laughs. While generally skeptical of remakes, she makes an exception for Luca Guadagnino’s Suspiria, praising the filmmaker for creating something entirely his own rather than attempting to recreate Argento’s original.
“He wasn’t trying to capture the energy of Argento’s film. It felt like a story in its own right.” She goes on to explain, “…if they do that with Possession, then I’m interested.”
The conversation also reveals just how deeply cinema has been embedded into The Last Dinner Party from the very beginning. Long before sold-out shows and award nominations, the band envisioned themselves not simply as musicians but as architects of an entire world.
“When we started the band, the visuals were of equal importance to the music,” Morris says. “Before we played a show, before we shot a music video, we decided that what we wanted this band to be was something that was a complete world.”
That commitment led to elaborate mood boards, film references, styling concepts, and even a 72-page presentation that helped define the band’s visual identity before many people had ever heard a note of their music.
For composer, songwriter, and keyboardist Aurora Nishevci, many of those same cinematic instincts have begun finding new outlets. She speaks passionately about the horror scores that continue to inspire her, including the work of Mica Levi and Hildur Guðnadóttir. Rather than relying solely on traditional horror techniques, she is fascinated by artists willing to challenge expectations.
“You can decide to go the traditional route,” Nishevci says. “Or you can completely go another way and still be terrifying.”
That fascination has now become something more personal. Nishevci reveals that she is currently working on her first horror feature as a composer, bringing her own musical language into the genre that has influenced her for years.
The band’s connection to horror has also found an unexpected audience among fans of Yellowjackets. Online, edits pairing The Last Dinner Party’s music with scenes from the series have become increasingly common. At concerts, fans have even begun holding up photos of Jackie during performances of “Woman Is a Tree.”
At first, Morris couldn’t understand what she was seeing.
“I thought it was someone’s grandma,” she says. Only later did she realize the mysterious photographs were actually tributes to one of the show’s most beloved characters. “It’s fucking Jackie from Yellowjackets!”
The band enthusiastically express interest in seeing those worlds collide one day.
While The Last Dinner Party’s future remains unwritten, horror seems destined to remain part of it. Asked what creative paths still excite them, Morris immediately begins dreaming beyond albums and tours.
“We’ll do a horror movie as well.”
Nishevci quickly adds another possibility that has apparently been living on the band’s mood board for some time. “We keep talking about doing a folk horror EP.” “That’s been on the mood board,” Morris confirms.
For a band already obsessed with mythology, ritual, transformation, storytelling, beauty, and terror, both ideas feel less like surprises and more like inevitable next chapters. For much more with Abigail Morris and Aurora Nishevci, including further musings on Argento, Possession, Salò, Hausu, and the future of The Last Dinner Party, check out The Boo Crew Podcast Episode 473 available now on Apple, Spotify, and wherever you get your podcasts.
The band joins Olivia Rodrigo on the road next year for multiple sold-out residencies in New York and LA. Follow the Last Dinner Party on Instagram.
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