2012 Remainder Reviews - Dokken - Broken Bones

Artist: Dokken
Album: Broken Bones
Label: Frontiers Records Released: 2012
http://www.dokkencentral.com

The glory days of Dokken were filled with platinum selling records, huge concert draws, critical acclaim and the band's videos in heavy rotation on what used to be MTV.

These are not the glory days. The band now consists primarily of vocalist Don Dokken and a cast of musicians that were not part of the lineup that made the band famous. Sure drummer Mick Brown is still on board but he spends a lot of time with other musical endeavors as well.

The follow up to the 2008 album Lightning Strikes Again, Broken Bones has a lot of interesting moments that don't quite add up to a winning album.

Broken Bones opens up with the song "Empire," a fast paced track and I enjoyed the opening riff. The song is decent but it does display the main problem with the album: Dokken's voice. Whether to cover his loss of vocal range or seeming disinterest overall, a lot of the material feels like he is playing it safe; to get in, do the job and be done with it.

Of course, I find it odd to say that he seems disinterested when he not only sings the songs, but he produced the album as well as wrote or co-wrote 10 of 11 tracks on the disc. But my assertion stands because of the overall lack of stand out material on the disc.

It isn't all doom and gloom though and there are songs that come out rather good. "Burning Tears" is worth the price of admission and I think people will get into the up tempo track "For The Last Time". The album closes with another winning song, "Tonight".

Guitarist Jon Levin shines throughout the disc. He saves the song "Blind" from the lukewarm set of lyrics. The simple spare arrangement for the cover song "Today" was a nice touch.

A pet peeve of mine is when the lyrics as sung in the songs don't match up to what is provided in the CD booklet. This happens with "Best Of Me" and continues to annoy.

As soon as the album was released, Don Dokken announced that this album would be the last Dokken CD made. He said that he wanted to move onto doing a different kind of musical project. While that is an admirable desire for an artist, I would've preferred that he retire this band with a far better swan song than the subpar Broken Bones.