Nikki Sixx is best known as the bassist and main songwriter for the popular ’80s metal band Motley Crue. After the huge success of the Motley Crue reunion tour in 2005, Sixx returns with a new book and album.

Sixx’s new book “The Heroin Diaries” released Sept. 25. In the book, Sixx gives readers an inside look into his drug addition that occurred as he rose in fame. Along with the book, Sixx has released a soundtrack.

The soundtrack is the debut for Sixx: A.M. The band is Sixx’s latest side project along with DJ Ashba, member of Beautiful Creatures, and James Michael, who is a multi-platinum music producer, songwriter and mixer.

Motley Crue fans will be disappointed with the album in that it sounds nothing like the type of music that elevated the band to success. The music itself sounds similar to any mainstream rock you can hear on either 98 Rock or KWOD. For me, that is not the biggest problem. It is that the music sounds like a generic concept album that is being released to coincide with a book, if not mainly to promote it.

I do enjoy the Motley Crue songs from back in the day, and I do enjoy concept albums. You can find one for most genres, from the rock album “The Black Parade,” the punk “American Idiot,” to the classic album “The Wall.” Granted this is a soundtrack, and variation is good, but this album was lacking the consistency it needed.

The album is generic and yet jumps around to hit all types of bands within the genre. Sixx A.M. doesn’t do anything defining or noteworthy on the album. Listing to the music all I hear is the sounds of other bands. The song “Pray for Me” sounds similar to the vocal styling of Interpol. In the music, listeners can hear hints of Hinder, Seether, and Killswitch Engage, and probably a dozen other bands I don’t know about.

The interesting things about the album are the excerpts that Sixx reads throughout. Not to sound callous, but as sad and unsettling as the readings were, it’s just that Sixx doesn’t really give listeners a reason to care. Everyone has problems, and yes a crummy childhood is not any easy task to overcome, but how is Sixx’s sad song about how life sucks going to help me?

The album in itself is OK; it’s just a generic manifestation for the main media masses. Listening to it I’m left asking, “Why should I care?” and “So what?” Maybe this is where Sixx’s book comes in to fill the holes.

Mikhail Chernyavsky can be reached at [email protected]