DUFF MCKAGAN - Tenderness

The Guns N' Roses reunion tour runs for two and a half years and takes Duff McKagan everywhere, which turns out to be a lot of time to sit with the state of the world and feel deeply uneasy about it. Tenderness is what came out the other side.

Released in 2019, this is McKagan's second solo record and it lands somewhere unexpected, country-flecked, Tom Petty-adjacent rock with political weight and a genuine sense of dread underneath the clean production. It is not Appetite for Destruction. It is not trying to be. McKagan spent decades as the quiet anchor of one of the most chaotic bands in rock history, and Tenderness is the sound of someone who has been paying attention. The lyrics sit close to journalism, which tracks given he has been writing a column for a while now. If you think punk is only three chords and a sneer, this will complicate that, and probably should.

Format: CD. Full length studio album. Released 2019, USA.

Fans of: Tom Petty, Social Distortion, Steve Jones, Paul Westerberg.