Loud Hailer

Personnel: Jeff Beck (guitar); Rosie Bones (vocals); Davide Sollazzi (drums).Photographer: Tobias Ross-Southall.Arriving six years after Emotion & Commotion, a largely instrumental album that found Jeff Beck pushing at his prog boundaries, Loud Hailer is a very different beast than its predecessor. Revived by the presence of two female collaborators -- vocalist Rosie Bones and guitarist Carmen Vandenberg, both proving to be worthy sparring partners -- Beck returns to gnarled, loud guitar rock on Loud Hailer, not so much reveling in the psychedelic skronk of the Yardbirds or the heavy stomp of the Jeff Beck Group but favoring an arena-ready rock that places an emphasis on such old-fashioned values as chops and social consciousness. The latter helps Loud Hailer feel tied to its time: Bones sings about reality television, loss of innocence, and any number of ills plaguing modern society. That Loud Hailer doesn't feel especially contemporary isn't much of a drawback: perhaps Beck doesn