There was a quite a lot of loud blues rock around in the early 1970s. You generally had to do a lot to standout. The thing is, a lot of bands did a lot to stand out, at least at the time. Now, the sheer number of blues rock “classics” from the late ’60s and early ’70s seems kind of funny. Were all these bands really good? Or were critics and fans going through a phase.

I long thought Aerosmith horribly overrated but then I heard Toys in the Attic and Rocks at long last and I (sort of) changed my mind – both of those are pretty great hard blues rock records. This one…well, I’m not sure they’re there yet.

The songs are just not there yet. Much of this material is just too damn generic for me. Though the melodies are catchy enough I cannot emphasize how many other blues rock bands had reasonably catchy songs. A lot of them did. I don’t really know what about these songs stands out

This is blues rock we’re talking about so we can pretty much ignore the lyrics. That being said, at times they’re better than other times. But they’re still not great.

The main pull for Aerosmith is their grimy, gritty sound. And it’s here. It’s maybe not quite as fully formed as it would be on the next record, but the sound is not the problem. They sound dirtier and looser than many of their contemporaries, which is good!

I also like the use of the studio for a little bit of variation, such as on “Train Kept a Rollin’.” Glad for a little ambition, even if this is a style usually devoid of that kind of thing. (On the other hand, it doesn’t always work for them.)

This is fine. But, had they never gotten better as songwriters and as a band, we’d have forgotten about this band, as this is just another pretty decent blues rock record from the early ’70s.

6/10