I Will Be Me [LP]

His second album since suffering a major stroke in 2004, I Will Be Me finds Dave Davies in a defiant state of mind but that doesn't prevent him from indulging in a little bit of nostalgia. These rose-tinted reflections arrive early on, as the album opens with "Little Green Amp," a gnarly little rocker that twists several Kinks songs together -- primarily "All Day and All Of the Night," but it can't help bring to mind "Destroyer" as well -- and the subsequent "Livin' in the Past" mines a similar heavy territory. Things get a little gentler from there, as he turns inward on "The Healing Boy" and gets romantic with "When I First Saw You," which only signals how much ground Davies covers here. Generally, he's unafraid to make some noise, and that cacophony is an odd pairing with his deeply held beliefs in the mystical and UFOs, creating a tension that isn't dissonant as much as it is idiosyncratic. Sometimes, Davies' blend of hard rock and healing doesn't quite jibe -- it can lose form and drift or it can hammer its points home too hard -- but there's a dogged individuality to his mission that's appealing even when the music itself is not. This is who he is at age 66 and he is unafraid, even proud, to be who he is. ~ Stephen Thomas Erlewine