RICHIE KOTZEN is a well known guitarist - as the majority of you already know - and in the past he has released many solo records plus achieved co-operation with bands like POISON. He has also formed a band called FORTY DEUCE which focuses mostly on hard rock playing as well as many other side projects.
RITCHIE KOTZEN has been indeed very busy issuing out almost one album per year. There is a dark feeling, melancholy found almost in every place and generally a state of pessimistic attitude from time to time. I thin that  Into The Black  is slightly better and more innovative than his previous solo album which was released 2 years ago called  Get Up  which was quite fascinating.
Almost all tracks from  Into the Black  are mid tempo sorrowful songs with a dark touching feeling. The lyrics in the album show that they derive obviously from Richie's personal experiences and mostly deal with emotional affairs and relationships and breaking up. Maybe someone would expect a more classical hard rock feeling from him but this record is more moody, dark hearted and almost a bluesy one. Of course no one could possibly disagree about Richie's skills, both as a guitarist and surprisingly enough as a vocalist too.
There are many melodic choruses, well played leads an underlying blues feeling found here all built up in Richie's way. This record on the whole is quite enjoyable and may offer you some answers about breaking up questions and answers but I would rather prefer something more powerful and hard rock based than mid tempo - kind of dark mood rock. Anyway, highlights of this album can be considered - amongst the other - the following ones:  You Can't Save Me ,  Doin' What the Devil Says to Do  and  Till You Put Me Down .