Pyromatic - Reels And Stills

Pyromatic are going to take no prisoners with their new album Reels and Stills, they're coming both barrels blazing with a blues infused melodic rock sound that is gonna be instantly recognisable by fans of a certain legendary American "hair metal" band.

Coming right out and saying it, the obvious influence of Poison is all over this record, and thank god they've done it well, and that's exactly what they have. It doesn't sound like a Poison album, but by god does it sound close enough that it could be, and that's coming as a huge compliment. We've got big guitars, drawling vocals, and songs which stand out, all with the bluesy based feel to them.

'Angel No More' kicks the album off with a swagger of a band that knows that they have material that can stand up tall and strong, but with enough there to show the band are coming to have fun.

To be fair the album does have it's heavier moments, take for example 'Prince Poison', and we see another influence apparently surfacing, this time the Hollywood hellraisers in Motley Crue. Again, this isn't a bad thing, because the track itself stands up to the scrutiny that such comparisons bring with them. Simply put, if they didn't, this could have come across as a completely disastrous release.

Any doubts are firmly blown away, presuming you had any left, by the time you hit the second half of the album and the power ballad 'Promises Worth Keeping'. How often in recent years have you heard a power ballad, and even more so a power ballad that feels both anthemic, and one that could transcend boundaries.

It has everything that made 'Every Rose Has It's Thorn', everything that you expect when you listen to 'Home Sweet Home', and stands up happily alongside pretty much any other power ballad that has broken out into the big wild world.

The only thing that really lets this album down is the horrible cover art. It's a shame, but other than that...

It's always nice to be surprised. Be surprised, and check out Pyromatic. It's the best of Poison, and Sunset Strip of the 80's wrapped up in the shiny packaging of the new millennium, and it's superb.