This Wal-Mart exclusive includes a bonus track from Poison! "Sexyback."

As the ruling glam/pop/rock band of the '80s, Poison brought big hair and hot guitar licks to the forefront of MTV's video revolution. Now, with their Maybelline days behind them, the band proves that it may have toned down the hair, but it has definitely hung on to its metal.

Poison'd, the newest disc from these L.A. rockers, shows the boys in the band getting back to their roots. (And no, that's not another hair-band reference.) They serve up 13 classic rock tracks that they have personally Poisoned and transformed into metal-edged masterpieces.

Kicking off the rock with a fuel-injected version of Sweet's "Little Willy," Poison immediately sends the message that they're going to give fans exactly what they want. David Bowie's "Suffragette City" isn't an obvious choice for inclusion -- but then again, neither are tracks like The Cars' "Just What I Needed" or The Who's "Squeeze Box."

Crammed with some of the band's favorite rock tunes, there's plenty on here to please just about every musical taste. On "I Never Cry," originally recorded by Alice Cooper, they show their softer side -- and instantly bring back memories of their smash, "Something to Believe In." Bret Michaels still knows how to work those vocals, and on this track they work exceptionally well.

But Poison was born to rock, and they quickly get back to that with tracks like Tom Petty's "I Need to Know" and the first single, "What I Like About You." Originally a hit for fellow '80s act The Romantics, this song gets stripped of its New Wave feel and is refinished with a fresh coat of glam metal -- thanks largely to C.C. Deville's guitar licks.

Their rendition of "Dead Flowers" feels as much like a Poison track as a Rolling Stones tune. It's one of the album's standouts; there's a classic Stones edge to the sound but it also manages to feel like something Poison could have drummed up in the back of the bus.

The last five tracks on the album have been previously released by Poison, but this is the first time they've all shared the same disc. "Squeeze Box," which first showed up on 2002's Hollyweird, gets roughed up and made over, but no song gets a bigger makeover than Jim Croce's classic, "You Dont Mess Around With Jim." This pumped-up rendition renders the original almost unrecognizable -- but the song benefits from the added swagger.

Closing out the disc is "We're An American Band," a thundering version of Grand Funk Railroad's rock and roll anthem. Poison leaves no doubt that, while they didn't write this song, they certainly lived it. They deliver this rocker with such authenticity that you don't need to have seen a VH-1 Behind the Music special to believe that they're intimately familiar with what they're singing about -- or to know that they've enjoyed every minute of this trip.

Poison'd won't go down as one of the band's classic albums, but it does give a snapshot of a classic band doing what it set out to do years ago -- having a blast in the studio and sounding great doing it.

By Paula Felps