In many respects you have to admire Poison. For the last ten years or so, in a climate that is hardly conducive to their brand of 80's glam rock, they have stuck to their guns. Each year hitting the tour trail around America's sheds and basically almost single handedly keeping the genre to which they cling alive. But you have to ask why they even bothered to release Poison'd.

OK I know cover albums are in vogue at the minute, Def Leppard and Tesla having both released decent attempts over the last twelve months but Poison have not done themselves any favours with this. The sound of the album is quite simply appalling - Hollyweird but worse. The song choice is lame, for God's sake why bother covering 'Rock And Roll All Nite', Little Willy or Bowie's Suffragette City. It shows as much imagination as England's strikers in the penalty area.

Mind you if the song choices are lame so are the performances. Take Suffragette City again - when Bowie sings Wham, Bam, Thank You Ma'am there's attitude and angst and you just know he means it. Michaels on the other hand just says the words without any feeling or emotion whatsoever. To make matters even worse, if that were possible, the band even resort to including covers that they have previously released on other albums - Your Mama Don't Dance was or course a hit single culled from Open Up And Say Ahh and Squeeze Box featured on Hollyweird. It all just smacks of laziness and a crass attempt to sell a few albums whilst on tour.

Poison'd will do nothing but harm to whatever legacy Poison hope to leave for themselves when they do eventually call it a day. What the band needs to do if they want to release product is put together an album something akin to the wonderful Crack A Smile or equally good Native Tongue and get a decent producer in to help them find a proper sound, not a recorded in a box affair the last couple of albums have been. That is of course if they are even bothered anymore beyond a few thousand punters a night in another city, another shed...

Let us know your views on Poison'd

Track Listing

Little Willy
Suffragette City
I Never Cry
I Need to Know
Can't You See
What I Like About You
Dead Flowers
Just What I Needed
Rock and Roll All Nite
Squeeze Box
Your Mama Don't Dance
You Don't Mess Around With Jim
We're An American Band

Line Up

Bret Michaels - Vocals
CC DeVille - Guitars
Bobby Dahl - Drums
Rikki Rockett - Bass