Smith/Kotzen-Smith/Kotzen (2021)

In 2021, two of the greatest guitarists of the latter part of the last century, Adrian Smith (Iron Maiden) and Ritchie Kotzen (Poison and Mr. Big, in addition to his extensive solo career), decided to join forces to form the Smith/Kotzen project and release an outstanding repertoire of songs that make up their debut album. For this album, they enlisted drummers Nicko McBrain (Iron Maiden) and Tal Bergman, while the rest of the instruments were played by Kotzen and Smith themselves. What we find here is a wide variety of styles focused on the electric guitar, as one would expect, from mammoth funk rock tracks like "Taking My Chances" and "Some People", to hard rock bangers like "Running" and "Til Tomorrow", passing through bluesy numbers like "Scars" and "I Wanna Stay", or exquisite melodic rock like "Glory Road" and "You Don't Know Me". Without a doubt, this is an excellent debut, which would be followed four years later by the album "Black Light/White Noise".