A soundtrack to a book? Now that’s a new one. This record is a companion to The Heroin Diaries, Motley Crue bassist Nikki Sixx’s every-gory-detail recounting of the drug-fuelled, nihilistic hedonism that came with being a part of one of the 80’s biggest metal bands. After a spoken-word piece introduces us to the tortured narrative of the diaries, the album kicks off with two excellent opening tracks: ‘Van Nuys’ has a distinct hip-hop feel to it, with the storytelling lyrics floating over catchy strings, before things are beefed up a bit for the chorus. Next up is the album’s lead single ‘Life Is Beautiful’ – a powerful, driving slice of straight-ahead rock with a soaring chorus and a great hook.
Things begin to flag a bit after that though, as the pace slows down and the turgid power ballads are wheeled out. ‘Dead Man’s Ballet’ has potential, but never really gets off the ground, while the muscular ‘Heart Failure’ is about as good as it gets on this latter half of the disc. The production is overdone and too clean throughout and most of the songs sound about fifteen years out of date.
A couple of strange interludes sprinkled through the record, consisting of spoken word extracts from the diaries delivered over vaguely circus/carnival-like music, add to the novelty value. In full introspective mode, Sixx is not Shakespeare by any stretch of the imagination, but his direct, tell-it-like-it-is lyrics can, like the accompanying book, be quite compelling. Though The Heroin Diaries is far from being a great record musically, and will probably be a letdown for any hardcore Crue fans, it’s nonetheless an interesting piece of self-examination from a man who by all laws of God and nature really shouldn’t be alive to tell his tale.