Alright, let’s talk about Nine Lives. If you were an Aerosmith fan in the spring of 1997, you were probably in one of two camps. Camp One: you were still riding the high of the Get a Grip era, cranking “Livin’ on the Edge” in your hand-me-down Camry, and you couldn’t wait to see what the Toxic Twins would do next. Camp Two: you were a grizzled, old-school devotee who thought they’d sold their soul to MTV back in ’89, and you viewed any new album with the skeptical squint of a man watching his favorite dive bar turn into a Hard Rock Cafe. I landed somewhere in the middle, which might be the perfect vantage point for Nine Lives, because this record is a glorious, baffling, overstuffed, and surprisingly scrappy cat of an album. It’s not the sleek panther of Pump or the cuddly but commercially declawed kitten of Get a Grip. No, this is a half-feral tomcat with a crooked tail, a chipped tooth, and nine lives’ worth of attitude to burn.

First, let’s get the elephant—or rather, the cat—out of the room: the cover. That bizarre, Kabuki-meets-Dali cat face with the third eye and the psychedelic swirls is your first warning that this isn’t going to be a straightforward rock record. And that’s because the making of Nine Lives was famously a disaster. They fired their long-time producer, Bruce Fairbairn, after cutting a whole album’s worth of material, brought in Kevin Shirley, who was known for his harder, rawer sound with bands like Diamond Head and Slayer’s Divine Intervention, and then proceeded to spend a fortune in studio time and label anxiety. You can hear that tension in the grooves. It’s not a polished, radio-manufactured product; it’s a band fighting with each other, fighting with their label, and fighting with their own legacy, and somehow, that ugly, beautiful struggle is what makes Nine Lives so endlessly listenable.

The album kicks off with “Nine Lives,” the title track, and it’s a mission statement disguised as a glam-stomp barnburner. That opening riff is pure, swaggering Joe Perry, all bluesy grease and garage-rock crunch, but then Steven Tyler comes in with that almost rapped, spoken-word verse that sounds like he’s reciting a beat poem about reincarnation inside a biker bar. It’s weird. It’s catchy. And by the time that “meow” hits in the chorus, you’re either cringing or grinning ear to ear. I’m firmly in the grinning camp. It’s a bold, goofy, and utterly confident opener that sets the table for an album that refuses to take the safe route.

Then comes “Falling in Love (Is Hard on the Knees),” which was the lead single, and man, did that song divide the fanbase. On one hand, it’s classic Aerosmith—sleazy, double-entendre lyrics, a hip-shaking groove, and that trademark Tyler yelp. On the other hand, it’s so deliberately, almost parodically sexy that it borders on self-satire. But here’s the thing: it rocks. That riff is a chainsaw, and the bridge where the tempo lurches and Tyler starts wailing about his “love gun” is pure, unfiltered nonsense genius. It’s not Dream On, but it’s not supposed to be. It’s a party track for a band that knows exactly how ridiculous they can be and leans into it with a wink.

But the real heart of Nine Lives isn’t in the singles; it’s in the deep cuts that show Aerosmith still had teeth. “Taste of India” is the first gut-punch. Clocking in at over five minutes, it’s a mid-tempo, Eastern-tinged blues-rock odyssey that features some of Tyler’s most evocative, cryptic lyrics about a woman who tastes like “chai and cardamom.” The sitar-like guitar work from Perry is hypnotic, and the rhythm section—Tom Hamilton’s chunky bass and Joey Kramer’s tribal, pounding drums—locks into a trance-like groove that feels more Led Zeppelin III than Permanent Vacation. It’s the sound of a band stretching their legs, and it’s magnificent. Similarly, “Full Circle” is the unsung hero of the entire record. That acoustic intro is deceptively gentle, but when the full band crashes in, it transforms into a soaring, gospel-tinged rock anthem about karma and survival. The harmonies between Tyler and Perry are some of the best they’ve ever laid down, and that chorus—“I’ve been around and I’ve come full circle”—feels like a genuine moment of reflection from a band that had seen every high and low imaginable.

Of course, you can’t talk about Nine Lives without addressing the power-ballad elephant, “Hole in My Soul.” Oh boy. This is the song that makes the purists reach for the skip button. It’s slick, it’s adult-contemporary, it’s got that Diane Warren-ish sheen that screams “soundtrack to a romantic montage in a 90s movie.” And yet… I have a soft spot for it. Is it cheesy? Absolutely. Is Tyler oversinging the hell out of it? You bet. But that bridge, where he goes “I’m a fool with a hole in my soul,” is delivered with such desperate conviction that I can’t help but buy in. It’s not Cryin’ or Angel, but it’s a perfectly fine power ballad for a band that had earned the right to be a little sappy. Plus, the guitar solo is pure Perry fire, which saves it from being a total snooze.

But then, just when you think they’ve gone soft, they drop “The Farm.” This is the weirdest, most underrated track in their entire 90s catalog. It’s a sludgy, grungy, almost industrial-tinged stomper about a mental institution, with a lyric that goes “They’re coming to take me away / To the funny farm.” It’s dark, it’s paranoid, and it features Tyler doing this manic, whispered vocal that sounds like he’s lost his last marble. The guitar tone is filthy, and the breakdown in the middle is pure chaos. It’s the closest Aerosmith ever came to sounding like Nine Inch Nails, and it works shockingly well. It’s proof that even in their commercial peak, they were still willing to get their hands dirty.

Elsewhere, “Crash” is a straight-up, high-octane rocker that sounds like it could have been a B-side from Permanent Vacation, all revved-up riffs and Tyler’s car-crash metaphors. It’s fun, it’s dumb, and it’s over in three minutes flat. “Kiss Your Past Good-Bye” is another deep-cut gem, a shuffling, bluesy kiss-off that features some slick harmonica and a chorus that begs to be sung along to with a whiskey in hand. And then there’s “Pink,” the second big single, which is pure pop-rock confection—a bouncy, funk-lite ode to, well, you know what. It’s clever, it’s silly, and the video was a masterpiece of 90s MTV absurdity. It doesn’t have the weight of “Janie’s Got a Gun,” but it’s not supposed to; it’s a sugar rush, and it’s delicious.

The album closes with “Fall Together,” a moody, atmospheric number that builds from a quiet piano intro into a swirling, psychedelic crescendo, and “Ain’t That a Bitch,” which is a bittersweet, acoustic-driven closer that finds Tyler reflecting on love and loss with a weary, world-weary rasp. It’s a surprisingly tender way to end an album that’s been so over-the-top and manic. It’s like the cat finally curls up on the windowsill and goes to sleep.

So, is Nine Lives a masterpiece? No. It’s too long, too bloated, and too inconsistent for that. The production, while rawer than Fairbairn’s work, can feel muddy in places, and there’s a sense that they threw every idea at the wall—ballads, hard rock, psychedelia, funk, grunge—to see what stuck. But that’s also its charm. This is the sound of a band that had absolutely nothing to prove commercially—they’d already sold millions—so they decided to get weird, get loud, and get a little dangerous again. It’s the album where Aerosmith remembers they used to be a dirty bar band from Boston, even if that bar now has a cocktail menu and a velvet rope. If you come to it expecting Toys in the Attic, you’ll be disappointed. But if you come to it with an open mind and a tolerance for glorious messiness, you’ll find an album full of character, muscle, and heart. It’s not their best life, but it’s certainly one of their most interesting ones. And frankly, nine lives in, who wouldn’t want to get a little scratchy?