Smith/Kotzen – Black Light/White Noise – 2025

Black Light/White Noise is the second Smith/Kotzen album. Adrian Smith is of course first and foremost known for being a member of Iron Maiden. Ritchie Kotzen is harder to place for me. He was in Poison at an early stage, he was in the supergroup Mr Big. At preset he fronts The WInery Dogs. Neither band is something as I know from the back of my hand.

AS mentioned, this is the second collaboration and is kinda a Blues Rock thing. With emphasis on rock I think. There’s also elements of Hardrock there but not really anything metal. After listening to it once I found it pretty soothing and I’m sure I will play it again someday. There are, however, not any “hit” qualities för me. Most of the time it’s quite boring but that of course depends on you musical taste. 

All songs on Black Light/White Noise is written by the duo. They also both sing and play the guitars. It’s hard to say who’s really doing what most of the time. But if you look at the credits you can also see that even Bass an drum duties on multiple tracks are credited to Ritchi Kotzen. As I said, I’m not so familiar with him, but that he’s a multiinstrumentalist is beyond any shadow of a doubt. 

So… Black Light/White Noise is a pretty stable rock album heavily blues rock influenced I would say.