While best known as the drummer in glam metal icons
Mötley Crüe,
Tommy Lee worked steadily on projects apart from his main gig for decades. Though moments of his first few solo albums (2002's
Never A Dull Moment and 2005's
Tommyland: The Ride) dabbled with power balladry and crunchy guitars,
Lee was an early adopter of rap-metal and has long been fascinated with DJ-ing and electronic music. Anyone paying attention to his solo trajectory since the late '90s won't be shocked by the rap, EDM, and hard funk styles of his third solo album,
Andro, but its synthesis of abrasive styles has the potential to be jarring in any context. Rather than putting himself in the spotlight,
Lee spends much of
Andro as the man behind the curtain, crafting instrumentals for a host of lesser-known rappers and vocalists. The album kicks off with the relentless assault of "Knock Me Down," a blast of squealing samples, walls of bass, and screamed raps from Killvein. This display of frustration and aggression dead-ends into
Prince-inspired funk guitars and falsetto vocals on "You Dancy."
Lee, a huge
Prince fan, also reworks the bouncy
Dirty Mind number "When You Were Mine" as a rolling, late-night slow jam. Both of these more R&B geared tracks are sung by
Lukas Rossi, and later in the album, King Elle Noir handles the glistening R&B pop of "Make This Storm" and "P.R.E.T.T.Y."
Andro is short, with a running time of around 32 minutes, and
Lee manages to wrangle multiple approaches into a cohesive statement.
Brooke Candy's venomous flows over the busy, dubstep-flavored beat of "Demon Bitches" make the song as much of a standout as the light, romantic EDM of album closer "Make It Back," and somehow both disparate tracks feel born of the same inspiration.
Andro, like most of
Lee's solo work, will be a hard pill to swallow for anyone expecting throwbacks to '80s hair metal or soundtracks for Sunset Strip debauchery. As a producer,
Lee clearly has studied the styles he's approaching here, and his palpable excitement gives
Andro a through line of personality. Taken without any greater context, it's this energetic excitement that carries
Andro and keeps its various exercises in genre and production from liquefying into a confusing mess.