CLEAR

SPIRIT had only formed in 1967 in the ashes of a previous band called Red Roosters and already by 1968 the band had released its first two albums, scored a top 40 hit with 'I Got A Line On You' AND was asked by French film director Jacques Demy to record the soundtrack to his film 'Model Shop' which ultimately would be shelved until it finally saw a release in 2005. The band had also undergone a massive touring schedule yet the pressures of the record labels were to consistently pump out product no matter at what cost to the quality. Having capitulated, the result was the rather disjointed third release CLEAR which pretty much gets panned as SPIRIT's weakest moment during its initial four album run with the classic lineup.

Although CLEAR featured the by then standard mix of songs written by both guitarist / vocalist Randy California and drummer Jay Ferguson, the album felt more like an odds and sods kind of affair with tracks scraped together for the sake of releasing an album's worth of material. The band itself has always expressed a distaste for having to release an album before it was actually ready to do so but nevertheless the album emerged in August 1969 and despite it all doesn't really sound that bad once you know the story behind why it sounds so unusually eclectic. The band delivered its usual 60s psychedelic rock soaked bluesy pop tracks and opens with the instantly catchy 'Dark Eyed Woman' followed by 'Apple Orchard' which showcases California's tasty guitar soloing and the band's excellent vocal harmonies.

While the band starts out in classic SPIRIT form, the album becomes a bit more unpredictable starting with 'Ground Hog Day' which suddenly abandons the 60s pop psych for a blues rock sound as if the band was channeling its inner John Mayall and The Bluesbreakers. Interestingly SPIRIT also seems to have written catchy melodies that others would later borrow and make their own. The rather unremarkable track 'Cold Wind' has an intro that sounds just like the main melody for Bill Wither's 1972 smash hit 'Lean On Me.' Add that to the 'Stairway To Heaven' debacle from the band's debut album track 'Taurus' and perhaps SPIRIT was one of the most plagiarized bands of the entire 60s!

Given the soundtrack score fell through, the band suddenly had a bunch of extra tracks it could pad the album with however given the three tracks 'Ice,' 'Clear' and 'Caught' sound more like something off a Weather Report album in an all instrumental jazz fusion light mode, these tracks totally clash with the brash ballsy blue rock songs such as 'Policeman's Ball' and 'I'm Truckin.' Despite sounding like totally different bands, the jazz rock tracks are actually quite brilliantly performed sounding a bit like 70s Soft Machine at times with beautiful keyboard tones and California's excellent fusion guitar soloing. The rather anachronistic 'Give A Life, Take A Life' sounds as if it was one of the band member's first songs written in the early 60s with a dreamy traditional pop song with pop harmonies right out of the early 60s.

Despite its oddball mix of tracks, SPIRIT didn't really have it in them to craft inferior material. While the album doesn't hold together as a whole, the tracks taken on their own terms hold up pretty well although not all are created equal. For a throw-it-together job, SPIRIT rose to the occasion and piece-mealed a decent selection of tracks that just happen to sound a bit quirky sitting next to each other. Newer remastered versions of the album also feature a number of bonus tracks including non-album singles such as the excellent '1984.' The band would have the proper amount of time to work on its next album 'Twelve Dreams of Dr. Sardonicus' which would got down in history as their strongest work. Sure, i concur this is SPIRIT's weakest album of its four album first run but it's not inferior by much. The songs are all decent to downright excellent. A bit awkward in how they hang together but i think the band did a commendable job of making lemonade out of lemons.

3.5 but closer to 4 than 3 so rounding up