SIXX A.M.: Prayers For The Damned (ALTERNATIVE METAL): review / opinion to read on Music Waves

2016 is undeniably a pivotal year for Sixx A.M. The pages Mötley Crue and Guns N' Roses having been turned respectively for Nikki Sixx and DJ Ashba, the three minds of the project could now embark on their common adventure. And what better way to prove this willingness to move forward than to release not one but two new albums in the same year? A brave choice in the era of playlists! In order not to give too much new material all at once at the risk of tiring the listener, the Americans had the good idea to space out these two releases by a few months, of which here is the first part.

This new opus produced by James Michael is a little bomb that rises without any problem among the best rock/metal albums made in the last few years. Eleven tracks for nearly fifty minutes that pass at the speed of light. You want a hit? Well, this record is full of them. From the opening 'Rise' to 'The Last Time', 'Everything Went To Hell' - a sort of cross between Stone Sour and Avenged Sevenfold - or 'You Have Come To The Right Place' (to name but a few), the band impresses and dazzles us with its talent.

But where this record achieves a feat that places it above the simple good album is that its apparent ease actually hides a multitude of details that make the fiftieth listen always as captivating as the first. "Prayers For The Damned" corrects at the same time the reproach that some may have made at the time of "Modern Vintage", namely a lack of power. The only real ballad here is 'Better Man', an exercise in which Michael is particularly at ease, just like on 'Belly Of The Beast', a rather dark track with a pop rhythm, which surprises and detonates.

But each musician has his say and the whole forms a coherent whole, with no one encroaching on the other. All this leads to the anthology track 'When We Were Were Gods', for example, where DJ Ashba creates a breathtaking solo. The guitarist is at the party throughout the album, shines by the quality of his interventions without ever doing too much, and proves at the same time for those who still doubted it that he is an exceptional artist. The listener who is also interested in the lyrics will of course take even more pleasure in discovering the eleven compositions, Sixx A.M. having always been more demanding than a Mötley Crue in this field since "The Heroin Diaries".

And it is by 'Rise Of The Melancholy Empire', longer track with progressive hints, inspired in particular by the attack of the Bataclan (France), that this little jewel ends. Taking once again the counterpart of its predecessor, Sixx A.M. always surprises after four albums, a sign which does not deceive as for the passion which animates its protagonists. Will the band maintain this level of quality on the second part? The bet seems daring. What does it matter, let's rejoice already to be able to revel in an opus of a rare quality. - Official website

SIXX A.M.

PRAYERS FOR THE DAMNED

ELEVEN SEVEN MUSIC

ALTERNATIVE METAL