Nine years after the last release in the original line-up, “Generation Swine”, Mötley Crüe returns with their ninth studio album. The band that knew great heights but also some less pleasant moments, has made fantastic albums as well as some not so good ones. Talking about The Crüe you can’t deny releases like “Shout at the Devil”, “Theatre of Pain”, “Girls, Girls, Girls” and “Dr. Feelgood” as these albums are good for millions of sold units. There are some less good albums though like the ones they did with John Corabi on vocals and their latest studio effort “New Tattoo”. Okay, those albums did have some good tracks but as a whole they can’t meet the quality of the records that made Mötley Crüe one of the biggest bands.
So, I anticipated the release of “Saints of Los Angeles”. The same titled single that was released earlier already was a good sign and after the first spins I already got the idea this was an okay album. The first couple of tracks like ‘Face Down in the Dirt’, ‘Down at the Whiskey’ en the aforementioned ‘Saints of Los Angeles’ are very strong. After these tracks the quality seems  to go down a bit but giving the songs some time to grow makes you understand Mötley Crüe simply has delivered a great album.
Okay, don’t expect some highlights in musical history as that’s not what the Crüe is about; they stand for simple yet catchy tunes.
Most songs have been written by Nikki Sixx and Mick Mars together with DJ Ashba and James Michael. Those two guys also wrote and recorded the Sixx:AM album, the band Nikki Sixx started to coincide with the release of his book “The Heroin Diaries”. James Michael also was responsible for the production of “Saints of Los Angeles” together with Nikki Sixx. Another co-writer is Marti Frederiksen who gained some fame in the past by co-writing Aerosmith’s song ‘Jaded’ for instance.
Okay, so we can come to the conclusion that, after several listening sessions, Mötley Crüe has put themselves back on the map and “Saints of Los Angeles” has become a solid and consistent album containing other great songs like ‘Just Another Psycho’ or the last song ‘Goin’ Out Swingin’; tunes that will get a great response when played live, believe me. The album, containing thirteen tracks, reminds of the “Girls, Girls, Girls” and “Dr. Feelgood” era which is a plus. Inspiration for the lyrics was found in their own past and loosely based on their book “The Dirt”; a biographical album which was a good idea. After a while you will find the subtleties in the album and especially Mick Mars’s guitar work has to be mentioned here; pretty damn cool! Yeah, The Crüe has definitely managed to impress me and hopefully they’ll return to Europe and especially Holland as that is about time I’d say.

This review originally appeared on www.lordsofmetal.nl