Customer Reviews

Flesh & Blood

5 star:		(7)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

1990's Flesh & Blood is probably my favorite Poison album. It wasn't quite as big a hit as Open Up and Say...Ahh! or Look What the Cat Dragged In, but I felt that this is where the band started to grow as artists and get a bit more creative.

Aside from the single "Unskinny Bop", which is every bit the typical Poison song, the band took a slightly more bluesy approach on Flesh & Blood, though not quite to the same level that Cinderella did on Heartbreak Station. Tracks like Let It Play and Poor Boy Blues are good examples of this new direction. The straightforward rock songs - Valley of Lost Souls, Ride the Wind, and the title track to name a few - are more enjoyable on Flesh & Blood as well, and don't fall as easily into the "style over substance" approach that Poison perfected on earlier albums. And the ballad from this album - Something to Believe In - is, in my humble opinion, worlds better than the mega-hit Every Rose Has Its Thorn. This is not some weepy ode to an estranged lover; Something to Believe In tackles some very tough subjects in a very emotional manner, and is easily the album's standout track.

It may be light on party anthems, but Flesh & Blood features some excellent hard rock songs, and may just be Poison's finest hour.

The 2006 reissue of Flesh & Blood features digitally remastered sound - which the album sorely needed - as well as two bonus tracks. The instrumental demo God Save the Queen is interesting, but doesn't add much. The acoustic version of Something to Believe In (originally available as the B-side to the Life Goes On cassette single) is a real treat though. Not only is it a stripped down version of the song, but it features totally different lyrics. There's plenty here to make it worth replacing your old version of Flesh & Blood.

Such an underrated album, when people talk about poison they never mention this album. This album is great from start to finish. I have over 600+ cd's and this is my favorite. Even the songs that weren't released as singles are good enough for radio airplay.... "valley of lost souls", "let it play", "hell or high water", "poor boy blues" etc. SUPERB production. For anyone that just owns poison's greatest hits or the best of poison, and is looking to check out another poison album, definitely give this one a shot! Poison at their best

Flesh and Blood really ended an era for Poison. It was their last album with guitarist C.C. DeVille (until many, many years later)and you could really hear their sound changing. They were a bit more serious, and the sound was a bit harder. If you like Poison, you will definitely like this. It's one of their best pieces of work. The cover art is also iconic as many Poison fans have had it tattooed on themselves (as I have) as a tribute to the band. The original belongs to none other than Poison's drummer himself, Rikki Rockett, done for the album.

Flesh & Blood is Poison's third and final album with guitarist C.C. DeVille, unless you count the four songs they recorded for Swallow This Live. After DeVille left, Poison never again regained their hair-metal power. With Flesh & Blood Poison changed direction to incorporate a more blues feel with the record, much like Cinderella and Bon Jovi were doing at the time. The album still has a party-rock vibe throughout, it just seems a little more mature sounding than previous offerings.

I believe with Flesh & Blood Poison hit their creative stride. Flesh & Blood is not my favorite Poison record, however, one cannot deny how great the songs are, and how well the band plays on the record as well. Don't Give Up An Inch, Ride The Wind, Poor Boy Blues, (Flesh & Blood) Sacrifice, Let It Play and Valley Of Lost Souls are the best tracks on the album, but the rest of the album doesn't disappoint either. It does make you wonder how many singles from this album Poison could have released, there just isn't any drop off from one song to the next.

It does make me often wonder, how great could the follow-up to Flesh & Blood been?? Poison just kept getting stronger and better with every release, and I would have loved to see what they could have come up with in 1992, the year I feel alot of hair-metal bands dropped some amazing records. I strongly urge anyone who like hair-metal or melodic-rock to buy this album immediately You won't be disappointed.

I first bought this album on tape, and loved it back then...I recently purchased it on CD, and its still as good if not better. This is my favorite Poison album!! Its not as Glam rock as the other two albums. If you love this kind of music like I do, buy this album...you wont regret it. I listen to it all the time!!!!

From the cover art through the songs themselves, this is their best album, in my humble opinion. The songs are well balanced, production is top notch (courtesy of the late Bruce Fairbairn). In this album, fortunately they got rid of a lot of hair-metal disgraceful cliches.

In a time when big hair bands ruled the world of rock, these guys made an unforgettable mark, in the genre !

Great CD but the remaster (at least the one I have) has an incomplete Poor Boy Blues. You've been warned.

With "Flesh and Blood", Poison really hit their stride. They brought their passion for blues crashing into the mainstream, with Brett Michaels showing signs of real maturity and ethusiasm on almost every track.

Highlights include, first and foremost, the experimental "Unskinny Bop", where CC Deville's guitar work and Riki Rocket's drumming both show a ten-fold increase in quality over previous albums, and "Valley of Lost Souls", where the whole band's energy is palpable. They take risks with these tracks, and find enormous success. And, both sound incredible on this remastered release! Other highlights include "Ball and Chain", "Flesh and Blood", "Poor Boy Blues" and "Something to Believe In". The band takes time to craft intelligence and moments of special interest into both ballads and rock tracks. As a whole, the third album is fun and energetic, but also deeply reflective.

Unfortunately, not long after this record, Poison's popularity and creativity began to deteriorate.

After critics used journalist shield laws as an excuse to trash Poison's first two albums, the band decided to try to solve the problem- not by trying to get the shield laws repealed, but by listening to rootsy artists such as the Allman Brothers Band, Lynyrd Skynyrd, the Marshall Tucker Band, and the Outlaws, learning from their albums, and applying those lessons to their own hard rock sound and style. They began writing songs that dealt largely with life's ups and downs, the sacrifices needed to make a relationship work, and other "serious" issues, and the result was FLESH AND BLOOD, their best album ever. True, an old friend recently gave me advice to take teasing like the humor on the album's big hit single, "Unskinny Bop", yet as good as her intentions were, it's not typical of the rest of this CD. Most of the songs have a fairly dark but not depressing overtone, and many are either inspirational, cautionary, or both. Songs such as "Valley Of Lost Souls", "Let It Play", "Come Hell Or High Water", and "Life Loves A Tragedy" speak of chinning up and being tough in the face of tough times. If you like hard rock with a serious message, but still enjoy having a good time, pick up FLESH AND BLOOD.