MÖTLEY CRÜE
New Tattoo
Eleven Seven Music (2000)
Rating: 7.5/10
|
|
Well, this one slipped on to the racks with barely a whimper. With original vocalist Vince Neil now firmly back in the band, it seemed that the only step to take was a backwards one, something which appeared to displease drummer Tommy Lee who doesn’t feature on the record; although Lee’s personal issues didn’t help either. Mötley Crüe recruited former Ozzy Osbourne skinsman Randy Castillo, who does a more than adequate job on this opus.
New Tattoo is, in my opinion, Crüe’s most underrated record, an 11-track album that sees the band doing what they do best… making rock ’n’ roll.
I’m unsure how much influence Vince Neil had on this back-to-basics sound, but long gone are the fuzzy dynamics that littered the previous record,
Generation Swine (1997). This is simply a stripped down, sleazy platter that nods heavily to the band’s early days, particularly on glam stompers such as ‘Punched In The Teeth By Love’, ‘Hell On High Hells’ and party anthem ‘Porno Star’.
Suddenly it’s Mötley Crüe by numbers to some extent, the album fleshed out by Mick Mars’ ever improving licks, and although bassist Nikki Sixx’s lyrics may sound as if they’ve been wrenched from the mid-80s, this isn’t an album of filler… far from it.
The token ballad is the title track, and while the bubble-gum rock of ‘1st Band On The Moon’ and the more sincere and sweeping ‘Hollywood Ending’ may lack the brute force of previous albums, this is true Crüe. Even so, New Tattoo still didn’t really fit comfortably into the metal scene at the time, as bands such as Slipknot, System Of A Down and Avenged Sevenfold proved to be more popular with the kids. Thankfully however, by sticking to their guns, and refusing to bow down to trends, Mötley Crüe soldiered on, breathing new life into some of the older songs in a live setting.
Sadly, it would take several years for another studio album to emerge (2008’s Saints Of Los Angeles), but for me, New Tattoo is a vital cog in a wheel that somehow keeps on turning. While none of the tracks on this record will ever feature in a Mötley Crüe “hits” package, this is still a solid metal record that will please any true Crüe fan.
Neil Arnold
