Gypsy Rose - 'Poisoned by love' & Michael Ross - 'Do I

[Geoff]

Has anyone picked these up from FNA Records:

 

http://fnarecords.net/index.php/poisoned-by-love-65.html

 

Heard them both and I have to say, the pick is definitely the Michael Ross disc.

 

The 'Poisoned by love' disc from Gypsy Rose is an odd one. The first few songs sound like the band actually had themselves prepared to release a grungy type of disc in the early 90's. Not full grunge type tunes like WIldside or Sven Gali, but they definitely don't sound like the band that delivered the killer 'Prey' disc. They're not bad songs, but not great. After that you have 5 tunes which must have been recorded either before or during 'Prey.' Apart from 'Ride on that train' (filler) the songs are utterly killer. 'Fallin,' and 'I Surrender' are as good as most off the debut, and 'Give It To Me All Night Long' and 'Bang Bang Boyz' are both great. The problem? They all sound like dogshit. Like Jarred was saying with the Roxy Blue discs, the sound quality is barely audible. It's just terrible. It's almost worse to hear such great songs in such a poor format than not hearing them at all. Mixed in with these tracks is about 80 versions of 'Don't turn your back on me now' and 'Poisoned by love' and then at the end you have 2 songs which are also featured on the Michael Ross disc.

 

The Michael Ross disc is pretty great. The downfall is definitely the differing sound quality from song to song. 'If your love was gone' and 'The other side of me' are both brilliant - undoubtedly old Gypsy Rose songs, and the sound quality on both is average. And the former is also on the Gypsy Rose CD, as is a ballad called 'Nothing to lose but each other' which I guess is also an old Gypsy Rose song. All are very nice, but there's some other newer, probably legit solo stuff which is really good too. Again, it's averagely produced, but there are some great hooks and sentimental lyrics in tunes like 'Leave a light on' and the title track. If you like mellow, catchy rock, give this sold disc a go for a nice surprise.