Blood Stained Love Story

As a result, Saliva's fifth album Blood Stained Love Story resounds with a previously untapped level of passion, energy, sincerity and diversity, not to mention an undeniable melodicism that will endear the band to anyone that feels any sort of connection between reality and music.

"I think we've all been through a blood stained love story of one type or another," says frontman Josey Scott. "It's kind of a metaphor for how things can be a certain way for so long, and then within a day, they just change and you're on this whole other path."

Blood Stained Love Story is an album of growth, a realization that there are more important things in life than cover stories, photo shoots and big Hollywood parties. But while it may be more mature than Saliva's past efforts, it's no less turbulent.


Long derided by critics as unoriginal and uninspired, Saliva has gained popularity among legions of rock & roll fans eager to celebrate good times with a bottle of domestic beer at their sides and their fists thumping high, high in the air. Blood Stained Love Story seems unlikely to change critical minds--much of the album, including "Ladies and Gentlemen," "Never Gonna Change" and the unimaginatively titled "Twister" comes off like warmed-over '80s hair metal. While it's true that the record features blazing guitar leads and drumming that'll hasten the beats of the average rock-starved heart, it seems unlikely that it––or the band that created it––will make an entry into the pantheon of timeless rock & roll. Thoroughly disposable. ––Jedd Beaudoin