486. Brides of Destruction / Here Come The Brides. 2004. 2.5/5

What must have sounded like a good idea to start with comes out at a reasonable conclusion. The marrying of Nikki Sixx from Motley Crue and Traci Guns from L.A. Guns was enough to grab people’s attention. After that, it was up to the music as to whether the attention – or the band itself - would last very long.

Starting off at a cracking pace with “Shut the Fuck Up”, it is a shame they couldn’t maintain that kind of intensity for the entire album. Sure, the lead-off track might be clichéd, but it works and has the kind of galloping beat that this music really needs to grab your attention. As an example, as much as I like “Brace Yourself” as a song, it lacks that same intensity and drive that the opening track has. Halfway through the song you can feel yourself losing interest, which certainly shouldn’t be the case.

There are other good songs here, including “2X Dead”, “Natural Born Killers” and “Revolution”, but nothing that comes close to reproducing the energy of “Shut the Fuck Up”. Even more disastrously, however, they leave their worst for last, the very average “Only Get So Far”, which as a soft rock ballad still doesn’t measure up at all.

In the end, this is somewhat of a disappointment. There was a great deal of potential from this line-up for something great, but in the end, despite a couple of good pieces, it falls into the bracket of “heard it all before”.

Rating: Not quite three stars, a little better than just average. 2.5/5.