Brides of Destruction – Here Come The Brides

publisher

impulse buy

Mayan Records (England)
Produced by Stevo Bruno

Nine tracks. Thirty-seven minutes. Frankly, not good enough from such established songwriters. Brides of Destruction (BOD) are the new band formed by Mötley Crüe bassist Nikki Sixx and former L.A. Guns founding guitarist Tracii Guns. Ex-Mötley Crüe/Union singer/guitarist John Corabi was originally involved too, but he left to work on his solo album. Shame really, as JC is one of the best heavy rock singers around. Replacing him is the previously unknown London LeGrande (what a name). He’s not a bad singer either, and suits the style BOD have gone for very well. Scott Coogan on drums completes the first BOD lineup.

This album is pretty much straight ahead Detroit-rock to start with. MC-5 style, fast-paced, repetitive vocals etc. Punky hard rock in that sense. It’s pretty good, London’s singing is excellent and Tracii’s guitar playing is, well, alright. It’s not up to his L.A. Guns standards; it’s not as precise. But it’s OK.

Opening with Shut The Fuck Up, BOD state their intentions from the get-go, and following with I Don’t Care we get a lot of obvious nods to the kind sound they’re going for with mentions of “Motor city” (Detroit), MC-5 and so on. But then the band pulls out all the stops for the superb I Got A Gun. The second best riff on the album, but with London’s best singing and the album’s best chorus. It’s a superb song and if the whole album were like this it would be an instant classic.

Then the opening riff to 2x Dead is good old sleazy rock at it’s best, with vocals to match. It’s a totally different delivery to the previous three songs, showing London’s versatility, and is very similar to Rod Jackson’s style on the second Slash’s Snakepit album. Brace Yourself likewise has another dirty great riff with great verses and a huge sing-a-long rocking chorus.

But Natural Born Killers is where things start to go a little bit wrong. A very radio-friendly modern rock song with an ’80s rock outro, akin to many of the pop-rock stuff in the charts, but with dirtier vocals, it’s not very good at all. Tracii’s solo is alright though. But the slide continues. Life is horrible. A painful, bouncy chorus and one of those stop-start riffs for the softly-sung verses that makes you wonder why they bothered hiring a guitar player in the first place. They should have released it as a single. It would have sold millions.

Back on track towards the end though. Revolution is far more hard rocking than the previous three songs. Well, most of the time – the chorus is pretty lightweight. And we finish with the well sung closing pop-ballad Only Get So Far. I mention the singing again because, as with most pop songs, it’s the only redeeming factor.

From a Nikki Sixx point of view, this album makes sense. He’s always been keen on writing chart material. He’s written songs for many pop acts and has often tried to make Motley Crue sound more modern and acceptable in the pop world (remember Generation Swine?), while trying to maintain his hard-man of rock image, just in case anyone accused him of selling out. However, from a Tracii Guns point of view, I don’t get it. He’s never shown any interest in anything but dirty LA rock, which is why his departure from the Guns (mid tour, forcing them to pull out of the Monsters of Rock tour with Alice Cooper) was so strange. Why leave one of the last remaining advocates of sleazy good-time rock to make what is essentially pop music? Corabi wouldn’t have let this happen. There’s no doubt more to his departure than was originally said.

What it comes down to is this: I Got A Gun, 2x Dead and Brace Yourself are what this record is all about. Those are the songs. Shut The Fuck Up and I Don’t Care are OK rockers and do well to set you up for the aforementioned trio of classics, and Only Get So Far is a decent enough closer. It’s the other three that let it down. The album starts alright, and ends alright, and hits every extreme in the middle. An interesting listen, but by no means a classic. There’s potential, so hopefully they can keep it together long enough to produce more with album number two, due in late 2005. With the addition on Ginger from Wildhearts we can probably expect something even more poppy than before.

by Andy Lye

“ Detroit-rock ”

Tracklist: Shut The F**k Up / I Don’t Care / I Got A Gun / 2x Dead / Brace Yourself / Natural Born Killers / Life / Revolution / Only Get So Far

Written by Andy Lye
More: Albums, Hard Rock, Brides of Destruction