Night in the Ruts (1979)

In a way, this album, and its follow-up, are tainted by history. For the story of Aerosmith to reach maximum compelling factor, they have to plummet into a creative and commercial abyss. To a degree this is accurate: Aerosmith recorded their worst records between 1978 and 1983, and were rewarded with dwindling sales. True, all true.

And yes, it's no surprise (italicized for pun-emphasis) this album is lackluster. Turmoil, drugs, fighting, creative exhaustion... 5 years of professional drug use and rock stardom will take its toll. They weren't a band that could record an album business as usual, crank out a hit and go tour. Even judging from the difference between Rocks and Draw The Line, this band has to move in some direction. And here, even if the results aren't the most gratifying, there's an effort to try something. As on Draw the Line, there's a strong reliance on the rhythm section, with Joe Perry leaving during the course of recording this. The guitars don't suck on it, but there's a less defined guitar identity than any other Aerosmith album. Which is probably why it was considered to be such a failure by critics, being that it is a hard rock album and all.

What they end up with is about half a good album. A few songs are quite good, a few are almost there, and a few are junk to some degree or another. If nothing else, all these mediocre-to-okay songs sound like they go together, and not like they're just re-writing old songs. I often say the worst thing a rock album can be is boring, and it isn't that, so... away we go.

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