Poison (Artist) - Native Tongue
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Music CD Cover Artist: Poison (Artist) Edition: Music CD CD Release Date: 1993-02-16 Music Label: Capitol Soundtracks:
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| New | New Usually ships in 1-2 business days | $6.94 | ||
| Used | Used Usually ships in 1-2 business days | $0.29 | ||
| Collectible | Collectible Usually ships in 1-2 business days | $17.92 |
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Free Music Notes for Native Tongue Album
Free Music Review: Poison tries to get serious
Hit: 3 Stars
1993's Native Tongue is something of the black sheep of the Poison catalogue. The famous party rockers were faced with two obstacles when recording this album - the departure of guitarist C.C DeVille and the rise of grunge. Overcoming the first obstacle wasn't too tough. C.C, for all his style, wasn't the greatest guitar player and his replacement, Ritchie Kotzen, was a real talent. The second obstacle was a bit trickier. What does a party rock band do when the party ends?
Poison didn't try to go grunge with this album (thankfully), but they did try to get more serious. In this case, that meant a sharp turn into blues rock territory. We caught a couple of hints of that on 1990's Flesh & Blood, but it's way more prominent on Native Tongue. I assume Kotzen, who has some serious blues chops, had a lot to do with that. For a band like Cinderella, the bluesy sound makes sense, but from a band whose previous hits champion looking for "Nothin' But a Good Time," it's a little awkward. There are some fun rock songs here (like "Ain't That the Truth), and the minor hit "Stand" sounds a bit like "Something To Believe In," but for the most part the songs on Native Tongue, technically sound as they are, just don't excite. It didn't help that most of Poison's fanbase was being told that what they used to like was impossibly uncool and that grungy, flannel-clad Seattle bands where what they needed to listen to.
I was a big fan of Poison growing up, and still play their albums from time to time, but Native Tongue rarely gets taken off the shelf. It's a perfectly solid blues-based rock album, but it just doesn't feel like a Poison album. I'd recommend it only to completists or Kotzen fans.