“I’ve realised that country’s like the new rock and roll,” said long-time Aerosmith singer Steven Tyler. “If you listen to Eric Church, he just rips it up like Zeppelin. So, I thought, ‘I’ll go down to Nashville,’ so I went down and it was like following the star to Bethlehem.”
In reality he meets the new muscular Nashville half way: Tyler’s arena rockist country meets their bro’ country rockist. Now 68, he remains willing, no matter how ludicrous: the video for the typically catchy Love Is Your Game defies belief: young hippie “rock chick” gives old man draped in long silk scarves the eye.
But if the 15 tracks are all tolerably listenable, especially those with a 1970s’ country-gospel tint, and if his voice remains as robust and confident as the polished production, there is still the sense that this is all a cod. Whatever country is these days, it is not Steven Tyler.
