Review Summary: Inferior and incomplete re-recording of an outstanding album. Not unenjoyable, but completely pointless.
At 35 minutes, this is more of a live album than an EP. At EP price, that’s a nice touch. But what do you get for your money? Well, some background is necessary here. Nikki Sixx, DJ Ashba and James Michael have a history of songwriting and producing together. When
Mötley Crüe mastermind Sixx wanted to make a musical project to act as a soundtrack to his book
The Heroin Diaries, they were his team. The resulting record was interesting, slick and clever. Being “more of a project than a proper band” drum machines were used rather than a drummer, to avoid the group deviating into a band mentality. Whatever that means.
It worked great on
The Heroin Diaries Soundtrack. But here, live? The musicians had never toured together – heck as far as I can find out, vocalist James Michael had rarely if ever toured at all prior to this point. They pulled in Tony Palermo from
Papa Roach on drums at very short notice and hit the road opening Crüe Fest. The bill featured both Papa Roach and Mötley Crüe, meaning Sixx and Palermo were working double shifts every night. In summary: an album that was never really meant to be played live, being played by musicians with minimal road experience of each other – one with little experience at all and two of the others being over-worked from playing two sets in one night.
The result is an album that sounds ice cold. Throughout the performance Sixx: A.M. proves to be competent musicians, but never once loosen up. There isn’t enough of a bond between the musicians to relax and enjoy themselves, with even DJ Ashba’s solos – bluesy and emotive on record – sounding utterly mechanical and rehearsed. Worse is vocalist James Michael, who struggles to conjure his powerful voice without his usual studio assistance, which leaves him utterly diminished. The star power of Sixx, and to a lesser extent the others, means the crowd were primed and ready to be impressed and to encourage him, but Michael’s crowd interaction sounds staged.
On the positive side, the album’s brilliantly recorded. It sounds like a lot of overdubbing was done, but some of the best live albums of all time were recorded predominantly in the studio (stand up, Thin Lizzy), and it’s better than sounding like an unlistenable mess. The crowd noise is kept low, further weakening the live feeling. And that’s the real issue. There would be nothing wrong with Sixx: A.M. making an album that sounded like this in say, five years, after three or four albums of material were out there. Instead, it sources only one album, meaning if it doesn’t sound any more live than that release – not in terms of environment, recording or performance – it bares direct comparison. With a randomly sequenced and incomplete tracklist, the masterful concept of the original album is lost, leaving this merely a poor imitation.
It’s a great shame this release isn’t a great one. It’s got a talented line-up manning the instruments, it’s well recorded, and the set-list is sourced entirely from a really solid album. Heck even the artwork, lazy and simple though it is, does a good job – consistent with the style of the first album and the book, and with the band’s acceptably cool logo. All the pieces were on the table, but they got put together far too carefully for their own good, rather than soul.
It occasionally makes a nice alternative to hear slightly different versions of the songs, and it's never a truly offensive listen, there just is no reason to listen to this when the superior original exists.
