Maybe this will sink in months down the road, but somehow with Scott Weiland and Slash together.. I was expecting something pretty close to absolute perfection with Velvet Revolver. This disc has not left my car in the first week of owning it... and from the first spin to the 20th spin, it has really grown on me. Maybe expectations were to high here upon release... I mean, what's it say when the local hard-rock radio station has been enjoying the album for weeks prior to it's release and even the DJ's say that the album has to be spun repeatedly before you'll like it and appreciate the genius going on. "Contraband" sounds like updated Stone Temple Pilots more than anything else. Outside of a few choice "G'N R" guitar licks you won't find much here that even resembles the Guns 'N Roses of old. Weiland's material with the STP's is/was fantastic and I've loved his work (despite his very public dependency problems) with the STP's since I first heard "Core" in 1992. "Core" blew me away back then and it's still one of my favorite rock albums today. While the songs from "Contraband" are hard and some downright crunchy, you'll find a few songs lack that "bite" that might grab you the first time you listen to a song and say, "Whoa... that was awesome". A few slower tunes in "Fall To Pieces" and "You Got No Right" are good, but the band is truly better playing the songs that it's members are known for - ROCK & ROLL - like "Sucker Train Blues", "Big Machine", "Superhuman" and their first hit "Slither" which is easily the best song on the disc. Too bad "Slither" is way down on track 11 and a long wait coming should you decide to listen to the entire album as a whole. Overall "Contraband" is a very good album... a tad slick and overproduced giving you that muddy distorted sound on some songs (were they intentionally doing this?), and somehow you're left with the feeling that there was huge potential here with an all-star line up... but, ultimately a few less than stellar songs make "Contraband" fall just a tad short of rock & roll perfection. Here's to HOPE - that the members of Velvet Revolver will stick together and write more music together. Give this CD some time... with repeated spins, I guarantee it will grow on you.