"How can we miss you when you won't go away?" It's a question that sounds as if it could be the title of an
Aerosmith
power ballad co-written by
Diane Warren
, but it's a sentiment that also applies to the Boston quintet themselves. 2012's
Music from Another Dimension!
may be their first album in eight years -- and their first record of original material in over a decade! -- but the band has never been far from the headlines during those missing years, and not just because
Steven Tyler
screeched his way into America's homes as
Simon Cowell
's replacement on American Idol.
Joe Perry
, the
Keith Richards
to
Tyler
's
Mick Jagger
, never was happy about
's leap to the small screen, but it was just one of many interpersonal squabbles that bled their way into the public. That schism can be heard on
, particularly toward its conclusion when
Perry
muscles his way to the mike for a pair of bracing rockers reminiscent of the band at full flight, but more than anything, this big-budget blockbuster telegraphs that
is indeed broadcasting from another dimension, a dimension where splashy kitchen-sink albums from rock bands could sell millions of copies on sheer momentum alone.
Carrie Underwood
may pop up for a duet on "Can't Stop Loving You," but that's the only nod to the present on an album that's living every day like it's 1997. Both the rockers and ballads are big, big, big, dressed in countless overdubs, so much clatter that it can be hard to hear hooks initially. Simply put, nobody makes albums like this any more. Nobody breaks the bank attempting to make a rock album that's everything to everyone and
sounds entirely oblivious to this state of affairs, carrying on like it was 1997. And, in a sense, as an overall piece of product,
is no worse than
Nine Lives
. It may lack a single as immediate as "Fallin' in Love (Is Hard on the Knees)" -- or the subsequent "Jaded" from 2001's
Just Push Play
-- but it faithfully follows
's '90s blueprint. ~ Stephen Thomas Erlewine