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Metal/Prog Metal CD Reviews

Poison Seven Days Live Review by Gary Hill Times change. When Poison first came around I couldn’t take them seriously. To me they were the worst of the glam metal bands. Well, in retrospect they had some great tunes, but were a bit limited in terms of their musical variety. Really you have two types of songs from Poison – anthemic ballads and gritty rockers. Well, they present both of those here in this live performance. At times this is a killer album but at other points it drags a bit due to the monolithic nature of the music. For my money they would have done well to alternate the rockers and ballads a bit more to make a stronger presentation. Still, this is good time rock and roll (I know, I have it under metal – and that’s what these guys are called – but I really don’t think they fit as a metal band – I’m just going to honor the convention) disc and it’s a fun experience. This review is available in book format (hardcover and paperback) in Music Street Journal: 2008 Volume 5 at lulu.com/strangesound.

Track by Track Review

Ride the Wind They rock it out right from the start. This has a raw and rugged sound, but still contains plenty of that catchy ‘80’s metal songcraft. The guitar solo on this is especially tasty. Some of the later parts of this actual remind me of Meatloaf.

Something To Believe In This powerful balladic number has always been a strong one. They put in a potent rendition here.

Stand From one anthemic number with ballad-like structure to another, this is good, but in a lot of ways (both lyrically and musically) not all that different from the song that preceded it.

Fallen Angel This raw rocker is good. Frankly, I think the performance would have been stronger had they put this in between the last two tracks, thereby making their similarities seem less obvious. I can swear I hear a little Hendrix quote on the outro here.

Look What The Cat Dragged In Now, this is the real meat and potatoes! This rocker is a strong one. It works quite well here and would have been another great choice to put between the two ballads.

Drum Solo This is definitely what it says it is. I’m not a big fan of drum solos, but this one is certainly energetic.

Until You Suffer Some (Fire & Ice) This is sort of trademark Poison, an anthemic number that’s ballad oriented. It’s not bad, but a bit clichéd.

Unskinny Bop This grind is a killer rocking number. It’s always been one of Poison’s best tracks and it works very well here. The extended guitar solo segment on this is especially strong.

Talk Dirty To Me Here we get another smoking Poison grind. It’s another case where they could have probably benefited from different placement of the tracks because this one isn’t really all that different from the song that came before it. You know, I can understand them wanting to preserve the live concert feel for this recording, but we get over a full minute of crowd noise beckoning them back for the encore here. For home usage I would think it would have been advantageous to cut that back a bit.

Every Rose Has Its Thorn This ballad is another Poison classic and pretty much a “have to include it” piece. It’s a good track and this is a good rendition.

Nothin’ But A Good Time They rock out with another killer piece to close it out.

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