I come back to review this album in the wake of VR second album release "liberated".  Contraband is the orginal first effort of this group, made up of ex-Guns and roses members Duff, Slash and Matt Sorum (second drummer for guns After Steve), Stone temple pilots frontman Scott Weiland, and Dave Kushner, former guitarist for Wasted youth. Originally known as "the Project" and filmed for a VH1 documentary while rehersing and serching for a frontman, Weiland fell into their laps and they hit it off right away.  Set me free was their fisrt song and released on the Hulk soundtrack.  Next release was SLither. These first two has the old STP sound to them, with a kick of GNR guitar from slash. Final big release off the album was Fall to pieces, A great ballad and very GNR sounding.  Overall, a great mix of sound on the album from both groups. I agree that the mixing was a bit rough, but still good.  With their second album out now, the band has really come into their own sound, and comparing it to this album, Contraband was definitly a start, and seems a mix of their root groups sounds, but awesome anyway.  Hopefully these guys will keep going and not fall apart like audioslave recently did, another supergoup of this decade.  Check this album out.  Unfortunately, this edition was a copy protected album, so making taking it to I pod, mp3 is not really possible.  Oh well, still worth it.