Slash unveils a glimpse into upcoming solo album

Saul Hudson, better known as Slash, exploded onto the music scene in the early 90s as one of the most recognizable members of the band Guns N' Roses, mostly due to his admittedly fantastic hat. In the mid 90s, Slash broke off from GnR, spawning one of the most publicized and dramatized feuds in rock history with Guns frontman Axl Rose.

Since then, he's recorded numerous records with different bands, most famously Slash's Snakepit in the 90s and Velvet Revolver with Stone Temple Pilots frontman Scott Weiland in the 2000s. Scott Wieland recently either quit or was kicked out of Velvet Revolver (depending on who you believe), leaving Slash free to record his first solo album. The album, to be entitled Slash & Friends, is nearly complete, and slated for release in early 2010.

Instead of creating a single band for the album, Slash assembled a different group of musicians for each track, and has been very tight-lipped about some of these mystery guests. Confirmed guests include the likes of Flea (Red Hot Chili Peppers) Dave Grohl (Foo Fighers, Nirvana, and now Them Crooked Vultures), Ozzy Osbourne (Black Sabbath, solo), Christ Cornell (Soundgarden, Audioslave), Fergie (Black Eyed Peas, solo) and fellow Guns N' Roses vet Izzy Stradlin.

To promote the album, he released the first single to the album in Japan yesterday. This particular single features the Japanese signer Koshi Inaba (of B'z) who also sang on the Steve Vai's track Asian Sky (off 1999's The Ultra Zone). The single is entitled "Sahara", but thats as much as I could discern about its subject matter as all the lyrics are in Japanese.

According to the man himself, this song will never make it onto the US version of the album, and the vocals really are rather strange, but the music behind it just might give us a small glimpse into what the album will sound like. Slash seems to have returned to something more reminiscent of his early work with GnR than his more recent Velvet Revolver creations. Although I enjoyed Libertad (VR's 2007 release), it would be fantastic if Slash & Friends was based on this bluesy sound, particularly after the disaster that was Axl Rose's latest solo album, Chinese Democracy.

Love it or hate it, you can check it out now:

(And yes, I do know about the monstrosity B-side that came with this one, but I've chosen to ignore it. I suggest you follow suit.)