Poison - Flesh & Blood

Flesh & Blood finds the ultimate party band of the 80s taking a more serious tack. Surprisingly enough, most of the time it works, and the result is a collection of songs with more substance than Poison's previous work, while preserving the band's sense of fun. "Valley of Lost Souls", "Life Loves a Tragedy", and the introspective "Life Goes On" show that Poison is in fact capable of writing good songs that aren't party anthems, though "Something to Believe In" stretches their ambition to the breaking point. "Unskinny Bop" is a delightful piece of raunchy adolescent rock, and "Ride the Wind" is a catchy biker tune (though nowhere near as classic as "Born to Be Wild"-then again, nothing is). The band even veers toward a bluesier edge at times, notably on "Poor Boy Blues". -- Genevieve Williams Amazon.com

come on now, have a nice shot of swampjuice!

Before listening to this album, I was really into their other album, "Power to the People." It was more of a new brand of Poison when it 1st came out, but jsut a few months ago, in 2008, I bought a beautiful killer entitled "Flesh and Blood." I 1st thought it was going to sound like a copy of "Poison's Greatest Hits" but I was wrong! They actually did a different sound in this album, and I think they shoulda gone more towards this direction in their album after this one. It did have some nice blues sounding to it, a swamp sound to it, a boop-bop-ba-doo-wop sound, and a really nice rockin sound..."Valley of Lost Souls" and "Flesh and Blood" are the best songs on here in my opinion...and "Swampjuice" is one of the best rock instrumentalist tunes I've heard yet. The cover is pretty groovy lookin, the lyrics are including in the pamphlet inside, and the tunes are rockin like never before! Definitely worth a buy...I saw it for less than 50 cents used - brand new too! Definitely worth a buy May 21, 2008

Hit it CC!!!

What can you say about Flesh & Blood that hasn't already been said? This has got to be Poison's best studio album. Every track on it superb. OK I am biased because I love the band but you certainly can't fault the song writing, the music and CC's riffs, his best in my opinion being track 8 Come hell or High water, he takes the guitar playing to new heights proving if he ever needed to, that he has the ingredients needed for legendary status. Check out the emotion in Life goes on and the bluesy Poor boy blues. CC proves he can make his guitar talk.
Buy it, you won't be disappointed. April 24, 2008

Six of one, half a dozen of the other

Poisons third album continues with the bands 80's hair metal rawk rock style. The idea for their first two albums of everything louder than everything else was actutally quite a worthy goal especially when the band were playing fairly unchallenging hard rock, firing out party anthems for their legion of ripped jeans wearing fans. On the third album however the bands sound started to evolve.

It should be noted that if you enjoyed their first two albums of rawk rock with a full bodied rock sound with Bret Michaels smooth vocals laid over the top then you will find a number of tunes here to float your boat. Rockers like Unskinny Bop really do take up where the hits of Open Up and Say ... Aah left off. Fun time rockin' with no real thought to tomorrow or even later on tonight - and I mean that as a compliment.

What people only getting into the band after their supposed golden age might find more interesting are some of the rockers that have some more soul - most particularly to my mind Valley of Lost Souls. A fine slice of hard rock to download to experience some of the bands stylistic tweaks.

Elsewhere we get some really sad late 80's takes on groovin' on the blues in the form of ..well a whole bunch of the tunes here really. The production by Bruce Fairbairn and co-production of Mike Fraser doesn't help matters as it makes the entire album sound `foggy', like your stereo has caught a cold, if you take me meaning. And with the band trying ever so slightly to show a more musically adept and varied set of tunes this doesn't help.Which is quite weird as on their first two albums the production was quite clean for the time.

This third Poison album is still enjoyable, it certainly racked up a few sales figures. But it was akin to turning down the volume after their first two albums or LA sleaze metal and heralded a decline in the bands fortunes as it just doesn't feel as buoyant. February 1, 2008

This is my favorite Poison album

This is my favorite Poison album because not only did they include songs that had their "trademark sound" from previous albums, they expanded in additional musical directions.
"When I hear the music- Let it Play!"
I have definitely played this album more than any other in my collection.
- Michelle July 26, 2007

Perhaps Poison's Best Original Album

Although it lacks a little of the "party band" punch that made Poison a top glam rock band, "Flesh & Blood" is definitely one of their best albums. It showed the listening audience that they knew about more than just partying, drinking, and sexcapades. The band collectively offers up one of their strongest efforts music-wise, especially C.C. Deville, who has some wonderful guitar solos here. They aren't all in the "who plays fastest?" vein. Instead, Deville gets to slow things down quite a bit.

Songs such as "Something To Believe In" and "Life Goes On" show that the band can actually sit down and write a good serious song. Don't worry that Poison is hanging up their goodtimes shoes, though, because songs like "Don't Give Up An Inch" and the wonderfully silly "Unskinny Bop" remind the listener that they still know how to have a good time.

If you're looking for a sweet reminder of your youth (like me), "Flesh & Blood" is definitely the poison you need to pick. It's their best album lyrically and quite possibly their best album overall. July 10, 2007

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