I’ll give Warrant credit for two things. First off, they dumped perpetually wasted singer Jani Lane. Last time I saw him in person was a few years back at former Warrant guitarist Billy Morris’ club in the Cleveland area called The Revolution. He was sitting completely bombed out of his mind by a fish tank in a television. I introduced myself and he sort of grunted and spit up at the same time. Second, Warrant is the only 80s band I’ve seen that’s put out a new release with good cover art. “Born Again,” looks like it’s going to be a rock ‘n’ roll fest of epic proportions. Though I’m not familiar with the artist (Christopher Franchi), the packaging for this effort is fantastic. Unfortunately, that’s where the good part of this review ends. This is some pretty horrible crap. Sorry that wasn’t very witty, but I honestly couldn’t come up with another description. Not that Warrant ever really did anything that was very good, but the songs on this disc couldn’t have taken more than a day or two to write. Lyrically, I think Jamie St. James, former Black ‘n’ Blue front man, spent all of an hour or two compiling such great titles as “Devils Juice,” “Dirty Jack,” and “Love Strikes Like Lightning.” He sort of half raps the opening cut to gut wrenching results. He’s “shaking like a leaf on a tree” in “Dirty Jack.” Was “born on the wrong side of the tracks” in “Bourbon County Line.”  You get the picture. The only song on this whole thing that even comes close to not totally sucking is “Hell, CA.” Sure, the lyrics are as cliché as everything else, but at least the chorus is catchy. It sounds more like Lit than Warrant, but for this disc, that’s a good thing. I suppose “Down In Diamonds” can fall under the same category. Some of the riffs seem like they might go somewhere, but as soon as James starts in, it pretty much all goes to hell. Jani Lane apparently has an album on the way called “Back Down to One.” I don’t hold a lot of hope for that either, but even as wasted as he is, it’s got to be more entertaining than this.
__________________________________________________

- BJ Lisko