ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED IN THE GEORGIA STRAIGHT, NOV. 8, 2007
By Steve Newton
“Just getting started”, my ass; these guys were toast ages ago. Do we really need them to step out of the Lamborghinis they’ve driven from their mortgage-free mansions to create the kind of ultra formulaic fodder Bon Jovi got bored with around 1983?
“Got my finger on the trigger and it’s only getting bigger,” sings Mike Reno in the title track’s chorus, proving yet again that he’s no slouch when it comes to Dylanesque poetry.
And what’s the point of getting Ken “Spider” Sinnaeve, arguably Canada’s top rock bassist, to join the band when they could have just as easily hired a 10-year-old to handle the low end on these juvenile arrangements?
The only positive thing you can say about Just Getting Started is that it allowed hard-working local vocalists like Joani Bye and Kelly Brock to–one would hope–earn some easy money singing backups on a few tracks.
No word yet on how much Def Leppard’s Phil Collen raked in for providing backgrounds on “Stranded”, the overwrought power ballad that ends the CD on a particularly nauseating note.
Or why the hell he’d even bother.