Sixx:A.M. - Prayers For The Damned (Vol.1) (2016)

×

Sixx:A.M. - Prayers For The Damned (Vol.1) (2016)

Close

Formed in 2006 as an audio accompaniment to Mötley Crüe bassist Nikki Sixx's autobiography The Heroin Diaries, hard rock band Sixx: A.M. feature the talents of Sixx, vocalist James Michael, and DJ Ashba. The 13 tracks that make up The Heroin Diaries Soundtrack, the group's 2007 debut, coincide with the book's chapters, painting a surreal musical portrait that utilizes the over-the-top theatrics of '80s hair metal, spoken word pieces, electro-industrial beats, and the occasional burst of circus music to tell the tale of Sixx's rise to stardom and legendary fall from grace. The Heroin Diaries Soundtrack was released on Eleven Seven Records in August of 2007, spawning a gold-selling hit single with "Life Is Beautiful." Two more songs also fared well on the modern rock charts, prompting Nikki Sixx to turn the band – originally conceived as a one-off recording project – into a full-fledged touring group. Sixx: A.M. hit the road in 2008 and eventually returned to the recording studio, where they began working on material for a sophomore release in April 2009. As it turned out, the second album (like its predecessor) was a companion soundtrack to Sixx's second book, This Is Gonna Hurt, which combined photographs with self-penned passages about the musician's career. Sharing the same title as its source material, This Is Gonna Hurt debuted at number ten on the Billboard 200. Although Sixx returned to Mötley Crüe for a farewell tour in 2014, he also finished the third Sixx: AM album, Modern Vintage, that same year. Appearing in October of 2014, Modern Vintage was a lighter, glammier record than its predecessors; it peaked at 20 on Billboard's Top 200. Two years later came the two-part Prayers for the Damned, whose first installment showed up in spring of 2016.

~ James Christopher Monger, All Music

Sixx: A.M. lightened their load on Modern Vintage, a 2014 album where they spruced up their Sunset Strip sleaze with a bit of vintage glam swagger. The very title of Prayers for the Damned – the first part of a purported double-album project; the second segment is scheduled for some time later in 2016 – suggests a return to darkness and, sure enough, the album delivers upon that promise. Hard and heavy, Prayers for the Damned doesn't truck with good times: it's all sturm and drang, tempered by existential protest and calls for all the alienated to rise. These rallying cries ultimately produce a diametrically different effect than The Heroin Diaries, the insular autobiography that kicked off Sixx: A.M.'s career back in 2007. Then, the group was Nikki Sixx's vehicle to exorcise personal demons – not for nothing did it accompany a written memoir – but now that Sixx: A.M. is his main creative project, he's channeling greater ambitions into the quartet. Fittingly after a near-decade of work, the band sounds like a cohesive unit, adhering through volume and intensity. Now that the group are comfortable with their chemistry, they're presenting a unified front and confronting the world at large; it's music that looks outward. Sixx: A.M. may still battle misanthropic demons rattling inside their heads, and sometimes they'll succumb to overdriven murk – a sludgy sound that conveys gloom but gets gloopy – but the ambition on this first part of Prayers for the Damned is admirable. Better still, they often manage to take this roiling outrage and shape it into something melodramatically satisfying, an achievement that suggests why Sixx had no trouble saying goodbye to Mötley Crüe.

~ Stephen Thomas Erlewine, All Music

×

Sixx:A.M. - Prayers For The Damned (Vol.1) (2016)

Close

×

Sixx:A.M. - Prayers For The Damned (Vol.1) (2016)

Close

×

Sixx:A.M. - Prayers For The Damned (Vol.1) (2016)

Close