Most people of course will know Sixx AM as the bassist out of Motley Crue’s ‘other band’, and so the the release of an album entitled ‘Hits’ might be a little confusing – we’re not talking hit songs here – we’re talking a career long (14 years and counting) retrospective with 20 tracks and 6 ‘new’ ones amongst them.
Sixx AM the long-running project featuring Nikki Sixx alongside former G’n’R guitarist DJ Ashba and vocalist James Michael though is a gem of a band if you’ve not stopped to check them out before and here they pull the best of their actual ‘hits’, along with fan and live favourites and their first new material since 2016.
If you love the band, or love the modern rock of bands like say Stone Sour or Mudvayne, Godsmack even Disturbed the you’ll probably like this even if the ‘new’ material is a little hit and miss.
‘The First 21’ the first bonus track though is rather cool and along with openers ‘This is Gonna Hurt’ and ‘Life is Beautiful’ it shows just what the band can do. The remixes of ‘Talk to Me’ and ‘Skin’ are kinda cool too if not essential (not sure why we also get the original version of ‘Skin’ but not ‘Talk to Me’). The third remi though – the piano mix of ‘Life Is Beautiful’ is pretty damn cool.
Of the other two ‘new’ tracks ‘Penetrate’ is a mid tempo darker rocker that comes across a little vintage Stone Temple Pilots with a tacked on Radio Rock chorus but fails to really hit pay dirt, whilst ‘Waiting All My Life’ sounds like a Cheap Trick playing late 80’s Hard Rock. It’s a little hard to know what comes next based on those two.
A nice addition for fans and those wanting to check out the bands best moments.
7.5 /10