Review Summary: Better to be bad than boring, unfortunately, and this album has a little of both.
Seven years ago Nikki Sixx from Motley Crue launched the first album, Heroin Diaries Soundtrack from his new side project and it worked well with James Michael’s soaring vocals and DJ Ashba’s experience on lead guitar. Seven years later with the release of their third full-length, nothing is better.
To be completely honest here, few things are so laughably bad here; the album is just boring. Tracks tend to blend together, and some like “Give Me a Love” out just seem to have all been done before while “Hyperventilate” just feels awkward. On a mainstream rock album I suppose I shouldn’t have expected any different.
The lyrics are the easily the worst part of the album. Some songs such as “Get Ya Some” are laughably bad.
Everybody get some
Everybody get some
You gotta get you some
You gotta get yourself some
You gotta get you some
You gotta get yourself some
You never have to try hard to guess the song title, as most of the chorus’s contain few words or phrases outside the title. “Get Ya Some” again, being the prime example in addition to “High on the Music” and “Let’s Go.” It sounds more like they named the songs before writing the lyrics and then couldn’t find enough inspiration to actually write about the theme, so they just filled in the gaps with cute little rhymes.
With that being said, Ashba shines on tracks such as “Relief,” “High on the Music” “Hyperventilate,” and piano-driven ballad “Drive.” The 20 seconds or so when he gets to solo are, in the worst songs, the only point where I actually want to listen. On the better songs it fits in nicely. James Michael’s vocals seem weaker this time around than ever before. In nearly every track, his voice is shaky and it adds an awkward feel that shouldn’t be there. He goes into an awkward falsetto at times like the chorus of “Get Ya Some” and it’s even shakier than his chest voice.
This release isn’t going to attract any new fans to the band, and it’s sure to turn off some old fans like myself. If you’re a die-hard Nikki Sixx fan or just long for Michael’s voice I’d still recommend checking this out, but if not there’s nothing here that hasn’t been done elsewhere or with the band’s previous releases.
Recommended Tracks
Relief
Let's Go
