The Aerosmith reunion album - preceded by tour the year before - was an underwhelming affair, mainly because Tyler and Perry's drug problems had not been resolved, the band was emotionally running on something less than fumes, and every move they made - including the new title of the album - indicated things were not changing. Personally, I vaguely recall "Shela" from that time, but until "Walk This Way" really broke on the level that it did, Aerosmith was not just considered washed up to industry insiders. But there were moves made behind the scenes to make this album a big deal. Ted Templeman, Van Halen's guy, was the producer. They were on a new label (Geffen). The sessions were done in Berkeley, California, away from the bigger drug scenes - although, as we know, you can score drugs anywhere, if you have enough disposable income and connections. The reformed band is doing everything the same way as before, but I will not spent a lot of time on this album, either, because they sound plain worn out and used. For real, any talk of comeback as it relates to Aerosmith starts and ends with the remake of "Walk This Way", if we want to get serious. If we don't want to do that, then Done With Mirrors is a decent hard rock album for a heck of a lot of other lesser bands in this world. For Aerosmith, who once scaled the highest of the highs (both literal and figurative), this is what it had come to - a struggle to hang on for relevancy. Throw out a dark, grumbly throwback which scrapes the nether regions of FM rock radio ("Shela") that pleases the old-time fans, re-use some old Joe Perry stuff ("Let the Music Do the Talking"), and everywhere else do just enough to keep everyone wondering - is the revival still within reach? Or was this on life support, and was it time to pull the plug?

In the midst of making this album, even Whitford had enough of Tyler's drug demons and left. But really, this is true to the spirit of the 70's records, even though there are a few nods to the 80's here and there, like the goofy synth lead in to "Lightning Strikes". There's not much to say, otherwise. The band is still on the downside from its' drug and concert debacles and now under the very unsteady control of Tyler, yet the album is not even close to being a failure. It's fairly entertaining, rather head-scratching at times, but overall, another winner that stands on its' own next to the giants of the previous decade. The strangest tangent may be the whole "Joanie's Butterfly" deal, and actually, the only part that really bothers me is the "Prelude", where I never can understand Tyler's electronically-treated spoken-word bit, which renders it worthless. "Butterfly" itself is an OK, art-rock type-of song which reminds me of a more light-hearted version of "Kings and Queens", but in this record, it also feels a bit out of place. It definitely stretches for something far out of the normal reach of the content of this album, which is - the gutter. And that, to me, is something that should really interest the hardcore fan which got into the band in the first place. Tracks like "Jailbait", "Jig Is Up", and "Bolivian Ragamuffin" are right in that rough house, first or second album ball park, but with noticeable swaths of vulnerability thrown in. "Bitch's Brew", for me, is the pick, which could have come straight out of the Toys in the Attic days, especially the spaced-out, quivering-on-the-void mid-section. Just an amazing throwback. "Push Comes to Shove", as well, shares a lot of the strange mood that a older track like "Pandora's Box" had going for it. The drawback here is, at this low point, that is about all the band had going for them - recall the old days by piling on the excess, money, and more drugs than you can ever imagine. Apparently, 3 years and around $1.5 million were spent eking out the album which took some 20 years to garner a gold record. So, I guess the moral is - you win some and you lose some?

And this was roughly Aerosmith's version of the Rolling Stones' Exile on Main Street - from a sheer chemical intake standpoint, if you know the story behind the making of Draw The Line - except that in Aerosmith's case, they did it on a bigger, better, and far more dangerous scale. I think the album cover is a total misrepresentation, from the perspective that it trivializes the magnitude of the experience these guys must have really put themselves through, just to complete the album. In retrospect, all they really needed to do was "draw the line", and put the biggest lines of cocaine imaginable on the cover, but then again, record stores were always family settings, weren't they? Bad drug jokes aside, this was really the downslope of the other side of the mountain, of the fast lifestyle these guys were living. Draw The Line contains the same amount - no, maybe more energy than Rocks and Toys in the Attic - but most definitely, the vibe is different than those two records. The band is more jittery, unfocused, harder to get a read on, and - like the average crackhead on the street - paranoid with everything it comes into contact with, either real or imagined. The title track kicks off the affair on a riff and groove as ferocious and brutal as anything they have done before, but even here, the mindset is on the next hit to keep the high going. "I Wanna Know Why" is where the paranoia kicks in. And then "Critical Mass" starts a small run of tracks where it is all too obvious - too many drugs, not enough sleep, and it is falling apart. "Get It Up" is one of the most grotesque songs in Aerosmith's 70's catalog. I don't even know how to describe the actual style - all I know is, they have reached the point of the party where everyone is too trashed to care about anything, and now the old, decrepit hookers and dealers have made their presence known, which might be why Tyler sings repeatedly that he "can't get it up". And it ends with the approximation of a clock slowly ticking away. It's beyond surreal. And then, a couple of tracks later, we get "Kings and Queens", a different bout of surrealism. Meant to take us back to medieval times, it's as if Tyler simply looked at a chessboard set while he was high, and wrote a bunch of lyrics based off of that. But what the rest of the band wrote, and then executed? Somehow, it works - despite all of the infighting and drug-taking and other BS, there's a point in the song where the Toxic Twins and the rest of the band set it aside, push on, and shine through the madness - and on a track about "Knights of the Round Table", according to Tyler, of all things. Aerosmith never recovered from this debacle, but they left us with the most fascinating crash-and-burn aural document, if that is any consolation. I mentioned Exile on Main Street earlier, but believe you me, if one has any doubts over how out-of-control a band could get and still manage a somewhat coherent record out of the deal - and at times, even an awe-inspiring one - this is your definitive answer.

The Rolling Stones Let It Bleed, Guns 'n' Roses Appetite for Destruction, and Rocks all have one particular thing in common - each album defines barebones, cut-to-the-bone, slam-bang rock 'n' roll to a tee - though each has some differing characteristics, and each band eventually ended up in a state far, far removed from this rough house ideal. In the case of Rocks, Aerosmith was a ship headed for stormy waters and the guys in the group were keenly aware of that fact, but somehow, could not stop it from going off course, for one reason or another. They even spell it out a little more than halfway through the record, on "Nobody's Fault", with a litany of lyrics going over the rapid deterioration of the group due to drink and drugging and road weariness - just an awful portent of what was soon to befall the then-current world's latest greatest dirtiest rock band. Unlike the previous album, with its pockets of art rock and Adam's Apples and whatnot, Rocks does not play around one iota. All competitors are officially outclassed, outmatched, outmuscled, and outmoded at every turn. Whereas the Stones had the advantage of versatility, and Guns were simply more aggressive and socially relevant, Aerosmith had the advantage of being supremely confident. Nowhere on the album is this better expressed than on the first two tracks - the ultimate sexual swagger and total maelstrom of "Back in the Saddle", followed by the mesmerizing "Last Child", with its slight touch of ballad-fantasy which plunges into its' funk-influenced, strutting main section. So, the only question left remaining was - how long could they keep the up the junkie high-wire act, and continue with the great material, or - when was the crash going to happen? Well...stay tuned.

It didn't take us long - three albums in, we get to this record, and actually, right at the very first track, one realizes - all of the sudden, the lone missing thread has been captured. "Toys in the Attic" - the song - is the place where it completely clicks, and Aerosmith has become the multi-pronged, unstoppable monster we all feared it would. As the rest of the band rushes into outer space on a complete and total oblivion trip, Tyler screams from the edges of his (or yours) worst nightmares these very words: "voices scream…nothing seen…real's the dream". And it goes on from there. Fasten your seatbelts. What transpires is a rollercoaster ride of epic proportions. OK, maybe "Toys in the Attic" is the scariest - possibly otherworldly - part of the ride, but every bit of the album's 10 tracks is top-notch entertainment, at least for a hard rock record in the mid-1970's.