The result was predictable: to the battle cry "When Wal-Mart's sighin', you'd best be buyin'," metal aficionados everywhere snatched up their allowances and descended upon record stores like a plague of locusts, eager for a dose of decadence. None of them stopped to consider --- what with Wal-Mart making such a fuss --- that Open Up And Say . . . Ahh! might be a harmless impostor. Unfortunately, that's just what it is --- an annoying parade of limp three-chord clichés and breathy harmonies, songs so formulaic that it's a challenge to distinguish one track from the next.

When it comes to lyrics, Ahh! is a guided tour of rock-catch-phrase hell, and Poison's bus doesn't miss a single stop. As if we'd never been there before, the band dutifully points out the Horizontal Bop ("Love on the Rocks"), the Scar That Never Heals ("Every Rose Has Its Thorn"), the Burnin' Desire ("Tearin' Down the Walls") and Life in the Fast Lane ("Fallen Angel").

Ultimately, Open Up and Say . . . Ahh! is little more than a paean to the power of clever marketing, a nasty reminder of what can happen when swagger takes precedence over substance, and nothing sums it up more succinctly than a look at the album's inner sleeve. There, among the credits, we find the name of the snarling, befanged witchy woman who adorns the cover: Bambi.