Welcome To Poppy’s is business as usual for everyone’s favourite Nu Yawk music makin’ hoodlums.
Even if nothing on Welcome To Poppy’s reaches the same heights as ‘Big Night Out or ‘King Of New York’, the pulsating funk noir of ‘Too Hot’ gets the blood racing, the soulful groove of ‘Living On The Streets’ eases you into their humid Big Apple arena and ‘Lost It All’ introduces some welcome punk sensibility into the equation. Elsewhere, the sun-kissed pop of ‘Beautiful’ is wonderfully laid-back and ‘You Just Can’t Have It All’ is the best ballad they’ve ever produced.
But all too often, it’s a case of funk by numbers: the bluster of ‘Stray Bullit’ is instantly forgettable; ‘Friday Night’ sounds more like a miserable Monday Morning and the yawn-inducing ‘Got Our Love’ is anodyne and takes them squarely into the middle of the road.
When Huey Morgan and his merry men first burst onto the scene, they were a breath of fresh air. Welcome To Poppy’s has its moments, but now, we’ve seen and heard all their streetwise schtick before, things are starting to seem a little stale and predictable.