Back in 1993 or 1994, I used to visit my local record store and would peruse through the UK metal magazine Kerrang. I often bought it at an inflated price because of its in-depth and weekly coverage. One particular week they had Nikki Sixx of M�tley Cr�e reviewing new singles and one of them was from Aerosmith's Get A Grip album. He gave it a pitiable review and basically ripped into them for using outside writers. I think the quote he used was "I can't believe the guys who wrote "Sweet Emotion" now rely on outside writers". I found this argument to be pathetic because say what you want about Aerosmith's Geffen era material, but it had more bite than 90% of the music of that time and even more importantly, it still resonates today�unlike M�tley Cr�e's latest album Saints of Los Angeles which is sadly a largely cold, calculated and emotionless affair. It appears that more time was spent crafting the press release for Saints than the songs on the actual album. I can't believe the guys who wrote "Live Wire", "Ten Seconds To Love", "Wildside", "Kickstart My Heart" and "Primal Scream" are using outside writers.

M�tley Cr�e is a band that has never fully received their due respect. Aside from their 1985 misstep of Theatre of Pain, they've created a rather stellar catalog of sleazy and primordial rock n' roll that is largely unprecedented over the last quarter of a century. More importantly, their music and their legacy have begun to spawn a whole legion of musicians who point to them as a major influence growing up. I see more teenagers with vintage M�tley Cr�e T-shirts than any other band from the 1980's aside from maybe Metallica or AC/DC (never underestimate Back In Black). That being said, the band and primary songwriter Nikki Sixx have become followers instead of leaders.

Now I want to state for the record that Saints of Los Angeles is by no means a bad record, it's merely half baked, but it proved to be the most underwhelming and disappointing listening experience I've had all of 2008. At the crux of the issue is the fact this appears to be an album created for no other reason than to offer promotion to their upcoming "Cr�e Fest" tour. The album was written and recorded in breakneck fashion with what appears to be limited and minimal input from vocalist Vince Neil and drummer Tommy Lee. What made every single M�tley Cr�e album in the past an enthralling, captivating and primal experience was that it was a B-A-N-D affair. Regardless of who received writing credits, the indelible M�tley Cr�e stamp was on every single record. The songs on Saints feel like left over tracks from Sixx's brilliant Heroin Diaries project from 2007. That book and the accompanying soundtrack are nothing short of artistic greatness. More importantly, it was genuine and truthful; two missing ingredients from Saints of Los Angeles.

Of the twelve tracks on Saints, only a few jump out at you with the rest are left in a waiting room for their number to be called and ultimately are nothing more than untapped potential. "Mother f**ker of the Year" is an embarrassment, lacks direction and appears to only exist to utter the F-word. "Welcome to the Machine" is tame and domestic and feels like a rehash of 1997's excellent "Find Myself", without the bark and bite this time. "Face Down in the Dirt" has oomph, but it's not a proper album opener. It doesn't blow out the back of your head like every other album opener in the Cr�e's catalog (including "City Boy Blues", their weakest album opener up until now). "Chicks=Trouble" had potential as a shady and slimy gutter song along the lines of Aerosmith's "No More No More" or M�tley's own "She Goes Down", but the chorus is riddled with clich�s and even more ludicrous lyrics ("They'll kick ya when you're down in the ditch") that are beyond laughable. "This Ain't A Love Song" is only significant for the fact that they appear to have lifted the title from the 1995 Top-20 hit for Bon Jovi. M�tley's version is a call to stalls and if the band plays it live this summer, expect the sight of a mass exodus as it will give fans time to relieve their bladders and feet. "White Trash Circus" attempts to be a skuzzy rocker along the lines of "Bad Boy Boogie", but even though they swung hard, the ball was nowhere near the strike zone. "Welcome to the Machine" is as banal as its title while "Just Another Psycho" and "What's It Gonna Take" (winner for best song title), like almost every song on Saints lacks that defining M�tley Cr�e riff, hook and punch. The album's final track "Goin' Out Swingin'" is delivered with streetwise swagger, but ultimately it proves to be a very good demo that could have potentially been so much more. Where are the hooks, the triumphant chorus', the bludgeoning drums, the hammering bass beats? All are sadly absent on Saints of Los Angeles.

There are two songs that have all of the elements of a crucial Cr�e song and are the sole timeless songs on the album; "Down At The Whiskey" and "Saints of Los Angeles" both remind me of what this band is capable of when they stand shoulder to shoulder. They are a street gang whose blood runs deep and whose combined efforts are indefatigable. So why wasn't the rest of the album as good as these two songs? It is as if they spent all of their time molding these two perfect creations and when they were done they looked at their watches and realized they had used 90% of the time they had for the record on these two tracks. It also does not help that you have a so-called band of brothers who live four very distinctive lives and in truth, have nothing in common. Now, the same could be said of the Rolling Stones, but they realize that the band is bigger than any one of them, whereas I can't say the same about M�tley Cr�e. The muse was missing from the writing and recording. I think Sixx is a brilliant lyricist and someone I admire, but the whole album feels like second rate M�tley. Nikki has diversified his portfolio greatly in the last few years and as a result, M�tley Cr�e is not his top priority anymore. The music suffers as a result. In between being a record label suit, author, and side projects like Sixx AM, he appears to have run out of inspiration. Another missing link is Tommy Lee. This was a man who in the 1990's was on an equal creative level with Sixx and here he merely appears to have shown up for photo shoots and to provide elementary drumming. For all I know they brought in a studio musician to provide these beats, that is how uninspiring it sounds. There was a time and place where Tommy's playing was top tier and was not just rousing and monstrous, but untouchable. Despite what anyone says about his off-stage antics, this is a talented musician and it feels as if he did these drums tracks in his sleep. Tommy has never been better when he's focused and playing the hell out of his drums. On Saints he appears uninspired and it shows.

The album's one shining light is Mick Mars guitar playing which is ferocious and fiery, when his guitar is left up front in the mix. Mars playing is a miracle on an otherwise banal record. The Cr�e is a rock n' roll band defined by the guitar and if there is any one thing they should have done is included more of Mick Mars upfront in the mix. What do you remember when you put "Dr. Feelgood" in your cassette or cd player for the first time? You remember that destructive and lacerating guitar riff that tears open the song and remains there for the entire four-minutes! There is no track on this album that is a tenth as devastating and I believe this is partially due to the mixing of the album. M�tley Cr�e are four enormously talented musicians who when they're at their finest �are one of the world's preeminent rock bands. Sadly, that band didn't show up this time. The band that did show up made a limp and uninspiring album. My biggest disappointment is that Saintssounds like an album by a third rate modern rock band when in truth they don't have to pretend to be anyone other than themselves�M�tley Cr�e.

The inspiration for Saints is said to have come from the band's best-selling 2001 biography The Dirt. While this appears to be a brilliant idea on paper, it provides minimal gusto and nominal motivation. Nikki Sixx has never had a shortage of inspiration when writing, but this time he appears to have hit a brick wall. You mean to tell me that besides a divorce and the sorry state of the world, he could only draw inspiration from a book that is seven years old about events from ten to thirty years ago? Maybe the well has run dry; alas it's no excuse for producer James Michael for going easy on the band and doing his best to hide the sleaze in their sound. This is where Bob Rock or Tom Werman would have bent the band into shape. Werman would have been the consummate carpenter molding, modifying and crafting these songs into an album that flowed and had a clear beginning, middle and end. Rock would have forced the band to delve deeper and continue peeling layers off of the songs and in the studio. If he had, a song like "The Animal In Me" could have been so much more; instead it feels like a song with huge potential but ultimately is an unfinished idea...close but no cigar. Instead of writing an album full of vitality and fervor, they wrote about a time and place when they had vigor and passion. Good idea, but poor execution. Maybe they are meant to be heard live�but even if they are great in concert, the last time I checked the Library of Congress doesn't catalog concerts; the album is the long lasting piece of art you hope that will live on in infamy.

When I grew up and listened to M�tley Cr�e albums, you could hear the anarchy and annihilation blast out of your speakers. Sixx's lyrics here are anemic and ultimately full of the worse kind of clich�'s that will do nothing more than feed the fire of the naysayers. From the riotous opening chords of 1981's "Live Wire" all the way through 2000's raucous "Hell on High Heels" M�tley Cr�e created an eclectic collection of roaring seedy rock unheralded in the annals of music. They were all about bucking the system, pushing the envelope and creating music that would blow the roof off of your neighbor's house. It appears that M�tley Cr�e is following the status quo instead of marching to the beat of their own drummer. People usually say that great books make lousy movies. You can now officially say the same about albums inspired by books.

Anthony Kuzminski is a Chicago based writer for the antiMusic Network and his daily writings can be read at The Screen Door and can be contacted at thescreendoor AT gmail DOT com.