Review Summary: Poison return with an album of covers and what was old is new again. If not exactly.....
“At the drive-in / In the old man's Ford.....” Oh wait. What's that? Speak up, sonny, I can't hear 'ya? Ok, so
we're the old men now? Oic....better make a covers album.
Old glam hair bands who were barely rock stars to begin with don't die, they just come 'round now and again to irritate us with “new” material that usually sounds like warmed over old material. So when searching for something truly new to lay on us what better to do but lay some old on us? For
Poison'd the once glamorous lipstick boys
of Poison have plucked 13 tracks of sterling rock n roll from the book of rock n roll history. They have also enlisted once celebrated producer Don Was to help bring the old warhorses to life, Poison style. Ah yes, to be young again....
Fat chance you bunch of posers, but that doesn't mean Poison don't look back with 20/20 vision and reverence in their tattooed hearts. And it also doesn't mean they and producer Was took a cookie cutter approach to laying these bunch of tunes down. On the contrary, the boys “poison” these cuts just as the album title suggests, with everything that was always fun and endearing about the band back in the day. Only this time around the songs are ten times better, at least.
Be that as it may, however, like most cover albums this one may be worth a few spins around the block and none more, as these selections sound just as you would expect coming from Poison. If you're familiar with the group you know the lean but solid hard rock sound that is this bands specialty. And if not familiar this disc may hold little or no interest for you whatsoever, these songs well known classic rock tracks commonly heard on everything from commercials to film to the internet. Still, the boys play with good energy and enough coc.k in the rock to make Bowie's
Suffregette City seem a little fresh over 30 years down the road, and take a heavier approach to the old Car's hit
Just What I Needed, which hammers the sentiment home a little harder then the long ago original.
This original Poison line up is certainly no worse the wear for the sex, drugs, and rock n roll years gone past. They sound tight on The Romantics 80's power pop sensation
What I Like About You, going about the number with convincing energy. And they likewise handle Tom Petty's
I Need To Know with precise and accurate musicianship. Never the best players around, Poison nonetheless know how to play this music
their way. And the foursome of Brett Michaels (vocals, guitar), C.C. Deville (guitar), Bobby Dall (bass), and Ricky Rockett (drums), seem to have not lost their touch at conveying a good time with music.
If the album falters it's when it slows down. Apparently unable to escape the
Every Rose Has A Thorn cheese and schmaltz, the old guys tackle The Marshall Tucker Band's
Can't You See, The Rolling Stones
Dead Flowers, and most hilariously Alice Cooper's
I Never Cry, which finds the 40-something Michaels earnestly bleating “My heart's a virgin / It ain't never been tried.” Um, ok, but no thanks. These songs come across as bland and insincere at best, and the boys are much more up to snuff on the closing
American Band, and sound downright inspired on The Who's 'ode to titties' number
Squeeze Box. Where they twist the arrangement until they in fact
squeeze all the Poison out of the song possible.
Old glam posers don't die, no. They lose weight (unless you're Vince Neil), cut the drugs and drink, cut their losses, and rape the back catalogs of artist greater then themselves. Then they tie it all up like someone should give a damn, pry on the leather pants, and hit the road with RATT and White Lion to prove themselves to the little girls once more. Never mind that those once little girls now have little girls of their own. Or not so little. Oh well, the more the merrier backstage this summer, I suppose. Poison, coming to a town near you with a bag full of old tunes and a pocket full of Viagra. Men, keep an eye on your women. The “boys” are back in town. I'm sure much partying will get done after their naps.
