Sixx AM show musical insight but lack consistency on curiously named Hits

Sixx AM's Hits - a misleading title for decent compilation from Nikki Sixx's other band

By
( )
published
Sixx AM: Hits cover art
(Image: © Better Noise Music)

You can trust Louder Our experienced team has worked for some of the biggest brands in music. From testing headphones to reviewing albums, our experts aim to create reviews you can trust. Find out more about how we review.

Five albums and 14 years on from their formation, Nikki Sixx’s other band have put together a retrospective record with a difference – the difference being that six of these 20 tracks are previously unheard. 

Of those 14 songs from the back catalogue, Life Is Beautiful, This Is Gonna Hurt and Maybe It’s Time represent the guys at their finest, possessed of a style similar to Stone Sour. 

Two of the unreleased tracks – Skin and Talk To Me – are competent remixes, while there’s also an emotionally staggering piano vocal rendition of Life Is Beautiful. 

Finally, Sixx AM introduce three new songs, the pick being The First 21, which is bristling with hope and intent. But unfortunately Waiting All My Life sounds like a Foreigner castoff and Penetrate comes over as an 80s reject. Annoyingly, Hits ends up showcasing both the band’s musical insight and lack of consistency.

Malcolm Dome
Malcolm Dome

Malcolm Dome had an illustrious and celebrated career which stretched back to working for Record Mirror magazine in the late 70s and Metal Fury in the early 80s before joining Kerrang! at its launch in 1981. His first book, Encyclopedia Metallica, published in 1981, may have been the inspiration for the name of a certain band formed that same year. Dome is also credited with inventing the term "thrash metal" while writing about the Anthrax song Metal Thrashing Mad in 1984. With the launch of Classic Rock magazine in 1998 he became involved with that title, sister magazine Metal Hammer, and was a contributor to Prog magazine since its inception in 2009. He died in 2021.