Saints of Los Angeles

Stars of glam metal era

In 80’s glam metal was one of the most popular musical trends. It was a whole epoch. Skin-tight pants, tones make-up and crazy haircuts were almost obligatory as well as an excessive volume of smoke on stage during concerts. Of course it all seems a little ridiculous now but that’s how stars used to look at those times. Generally speaking, a common image of a real rock star received its final shape in that very period. And even though they usually name Led Zeppelin as its real ancestors but it is hard to deny that early pop metal bands have added some new colors to it. Speaking about the image of early metal bands you can’t help mentioning the leaders of glam metal Motley Crue. These guys definitely knew how to astonish and shock people with their appearance. However, appearance is not the point. The Truth is that Motley Crue were one of the key metal acts of that period. And even though their last successful album was released in 1989 people still remember them.

Saints Of Los Angeles is the first Motley Crue’s album for the last eight years

The rumors about Motley Crue’s new album started to show up approximately in 2004. And this is small wonder. Despite that fact that the band’s recent albums didn’t help them to reanimate their past glory they managed to keep an enviable fan base, which is always ready to eat up any product with Motley Crue label on it. The problem is that you cannot feed public with best hit compilations forever. For the last ten years Motley Crue released simply gigantic number of such collections. Motley Crue’s new album Saints Of Los Angeles is their first album consisting of brand new material for the last eight years. And it must be admitted – this is quite a solid release. Of course, it cannot produce the same stir as before, this is simply a wrong time for such music but by the standards of Motley Crue some things from this album deserve to be included in the list of their best works. The band is in a surprisingly good shape. Everything looks really brisk and energetic. This ballad free album entirely consists of powerful and fast hard & heavy songs.

Nothing can stop Motley Crue

Overall, Saints Of Los Angeles produces a very good impression. That skeptical attitude that you usually feel towards such “comebacks” of old bands swiftly turns into sincere amazement. First of all, the album is well done in the sense of production work. Forget about 80’s, this record fully corresponds to the present-day standards. It has a pretty modern rock sound and the band is not trying to imitate contemporary mainstream at that, like Def Leppard did for instance, on the contrary, they are striving for a something really heavy metal influenced. The second thing to mention is the quality of material. As one could expect the style of this record exploits the same old-school pop metal principles. But this is not a copy of obsolete dogmas; it is something like an updated version. You can give a try to Saints Of Los Angeles, Face Down In The Dirt or This Ain’t A Love Song – these are very solid and exemplifying tracks. And finally you just can’t stop wondering how they managed to achieve such a great energetic air. There is no even a hint pointing at weariness, everything sounds extremely lively, pushing and even aggressive. The brief summery for this album may be as follows: Saints Of Los Angeles is definitely best album of Motley Crue since their Dr. Feelgood. Of course, it is doubtful that it will bring them lots of new fans but their old army will be absolutely happy, that’s for sure. This is simply one of the best albums of this kind released in 2008.