The American Scorpion drummer, James Kottak, is surely ready to go on after the close demise of his long time German giant. With three albums on his belt, and a role on the SCORPIONS, it should have been milky and honey all the way. Well, you can say that everything is going well with KOTTAK, however, the new and third album of the band, "Rock & Roll Forever", shows a different sideshow.

On its own, "Rock & Roll Forever" is a nice release showing the neverending American spirit for good life and fun in the sun. An American should feel proud after hearing most of the songs. We are a consumer's world and mostly America is our turf for having fun and selecting our goods in life. However, America brought us MTV. "Rock & Roll Forever", with nothing to be done about it, is an MTV oriented product.

Right from the first chords of the self-titled cut, there is no denial for the feeling that there is a bit of plastic involved here. If you hate MTV, it might be a bit of problem taking more than one listen to this number. However, freedom is all around while listening to this album. Everything here, from top to bottom, is pure catchy-ness on its modern side with tiny indications of the 80's. It is rather funny because we are talking here about an experienced role player in Metal and Hard Rock.

The presentation I see here is of a grown dude merging himself with the looks of GREEN DAY, NICKLEBACK and sorts while not showing his Scorpion side too much. Overall, it is ok for a side project, soon to be the only major, to be loosed from the so-called chains of the bigger band. Without a doubt Kottak did it on all of his albums, including this one.

So why this album troubles me so much? Well, what can I say? I like the vibes of this one; it is free and fun to listen. Even if I don't dig too much plastic and reeks of cheap catchiness, it is hard to watch potential in the eye and here tunes as "Drunk Unkle Pete", "Daddy U R My Star", and the cheesy "Super Pricks". I say, it is great to loosen up and do something different, however, doing stuff that will lower your level as a writer and an experienced musician, this is something not to do.

Don't get me wrong, this album presents some rather enjoyables as "Rock & Roll Forever", "Where You Wanna Go", "Don't Wanna Go Home", "Class Of 3000", "Sunset Blvd" and the closing "Time To Say Goodbye". However, with their good qualities and all, none of those have the breaking moments, like no solos, in order to make them classic long time hitters. Maybe some of those are memorable, yet, they will not enter the players of old schoolers for sure of true fans of the 80's. You would have to be open to love this one.

James Kottak announced that this is a merge of CHEAP TRICK and GREEN DAY on a bad day. I have to tell you James, I admire you as a musician, but I can't find the connection here. "Rock & Roll Forever", as I said, is a nice piece of release. It rocks, it parties, it has flames and something to enjoy from. However, if you measure the level of it, it is for fun, maybe one listen and that is all. I do hope that on future albums of the band, Kottak will go rather to the old school side of Hard Rock and implement outings from this marvelous sub-genre aside from kicking it to the side while letting MTV take control.