SYANIDE KICK – Syanide Kick

This is pretty funny, taken from the Syanide Kick press kit: “Too bad MTV does not have these standards anymore, when you had to have a great singer and musicians that can play, instead of DJs scratching records.” Well Halleluiah, Syanide Kick, halleluiah …

From their bio, Syanide Kick was another Sunset Strip band that never got a major label deal. Unlike many of their brethren, they probably deserved one, minus a couple horrendous lyrical compositions, which we will sadly fall into any minute now, depending on your reading speed. Anyhoo, Syanide Kick is finally seeing the light of day today, and like many of Perris Records releases, if this had been released in the late ‘80s, sales out the ying-yang would occur.

The band is made up of a Tuff’s bass player Jaime Fonte, Mikke Blaze on guitars, Joey Martell on vocals and two drummers, F Ferrin and Eric Vogel. They call themselves Hollywood Glam Rock, ala Tora Tora, The Bulletboys, and Black N Blue. (For the record, Black N Blue is way better than all those freakin’ bands …)

Jumping into the first track would mean jumping into an intro with voices and announcers and sirens and etc., and we don’t want to do that, although we just did. So track two is where we start, called “Hollywood Angel.” This is a great track if you want to introduce a mediocre band, so Syanide Kick started with the wrong song. No big deal. The repetitive chorus of “Hollywood Angel, Hollywood Angel, Hollywood Angel, so starry eyed,” gets old before you hear it once, not to mention a thousand times.

That’s it for bad songs, though. Not lyrically, but as a whole.

When the acoustic guitar starts on “Young & Wild,” you’ll be hearing White Lion, Skid Row, Danger Danger, all of them wrapped into one. Suddenly, it’s a bit like Poison, with a simple and strong drum beat, understated guitars and a song about, well, “listening to the children cry when you are 18 and life and being naughty naughty.” That’s probably not it exactly, but you get the gist. This is melodic, repetitive in a good way, and Martell’s vocals are exactly what you’d want from a hair band. Unlike Bang Tango, he can sing his ass off. After the guitar solo, you get a kickin’ drum and vocal only bit, much like Poison’s “Cry Tough,” and it does make you wonder why in hell these guys weren’t part of that platinum selling group.

Hair metal died for a reason, though. One of those reasons is evinced by the song “In You Or On You.” When you hear lyrics like “Spread your legs and make a wish,” or “shot my love right down your throat, drank so much you nearly choked, oh whoa-whoa-whoa!” you just laugh and be proud that you didn’t pen those lyrics. And they end the song with, “X marks the spot, baby!” Shutup!

Barring occasional Neanderthal lyrics, Syanide Kick rips. They even do the necessary bluesy song, and here it’s called “I’m Lost.” Martell’s vocals get a little more gruff here, blues-edged, and the skill at guitar starts showing up. The bass and drums impress as well. This is one of those songs that Cinderella could have written, but they didn’t. Joke’s on them …

“Let Me Down Easy” might be the best song here. Maybe it sounds somewhat like Warrant, but by now, it just sounds like Syanide Kick. This is an upbeat, again, simple construction, with Martell driving the short bus. The chorus is catchy as you’ll ever hear, which was always the strongest part of hair metal. “If you’re gonna let me down down down, let me down easy.” Sing along, that’s an order.

Coming full circle, they sort of end as they start, with a song that is OK, but not their best work. “Legs Up High” almost matches “In You Or On You” for lyrical damnation. But, this is a great song anyway. It has actually a Blink 182 energy, a thumping song with excellent bass and drums, crisp guitar, and Martell stealing the show once again. It’s not brilliant, but it’s fun.

You may have noticed that the tone of this review is somewhat flippant. Blame it on Syanide Kick. For the length of this CD, they resurrect a past when music was pure entertainment, pure fun, and in spite of the fact they are named after something that’ll kill you ‘til you are dead, about living the good life.

(After the review was posted, the band wrote to clear something up: “The song “In you or on you” was a total joke song, basically It was poking fun at the other cock rock songs out there at the time, and we wanted to write the most ignorant, politically incorrect song possible, thus that is where the song “In You Or On You” originated from. The sad thing about that song was people on the strip loved that song, especially girls (talk about low self esteem, what the hell is wrong with people) I seriously did not mean that song to be taken serious by anyone, the lyrics are so childish why would you take them serious. Anyway I hope that sheds some light on that song.”

So, the only negative knock on the CD was that song, which was a joke, and a damn good one at that.