Album Review: Confessions by Buckcherry

No band on 21st-century radio has mined pre-grunge hair-metal’s sleaze like L.A.'s Buckcherry. So it makes poetic sense that they’d spend their sixth album tallying all seven deadly sins. It's more surprising that they'd fare so much better with "Sloth" (aptly dirge-like stoner blues) and "Pride" (motormouthed self-loathing) than "Lust," but perhaps that one’s just older news.

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Best known for hits such as their cocaine paean Lit Up and stripper anthem Crazy Bitch, Buckcherry have not always given the impression that they have hidden depths. Still firmly tethered to the LA band's trademark blend of grubby rock'n'roll and strutting gutter-punk, Confessions seeks to confound received wisdom by exploring the gruelling reality of frontman Josh Todd's troubled childhood and wild adolescence. With the seven deadly sins providing a thematic core, there is plenty of room for Buckcherry to please those diehard fans that demand hard-edged party anthems, not least on Wrath and their first single, Gluttony.

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Confessions is an odd title for a Buckcherry album, as the Los Angeles rock & roll band has never held back any secrets. They've always been unapologetic for what they are: an old-fashioned hard rock group, living hard for good times in an era when good times are hard to find. Now on their sixth album -- moving from the Atlantic group to Century Media in the process -- the bandmembers aren't necessarily getting long in the tooth but they do lack the young, hungry energy that made their Guns N' Roses rips work.

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