TWELVE DREAMS OF DR. SARDONICUS

Of all the bands that emerged from the West Coast scene of California's psychedelic 60s, few sounded as eclectic and adventurous as the Los Angeles based SPIRIT led by the excellent songwriting team of drummer Jay Ferguson who infused the band's sound with the more commercial aspects and Randy California who offered the more experimental aspirations. The band never experienced the success they deserved and missed out on an invitation to play at the career boosting Woodstock event, yet has become recognized retroactively as one of the most innovative forces that was steering the world of psychedelically infused rock into more progressive avenues with a style that blended jazz, blues, country, folk and other elements into its proto-prog cauldron.

The band only released four albums with the original lineup of Randy California (guitars, vocals), Jay Ferguson (lead vocals, percussion), John Locke (piano, keyboards), Mark Andes (bass) and Ed Cassidy (drums, percussion) before Ferguson and Andes left the band to form Jo Jo Gunne following a final tour that ended in 1971. After two years of releasing three albums and an unreleased musical score for a film, SPIRIT returned to the studio throughout 1970 to record its fourth album TWELVE DREAMS OF DR SARDONICUS which despite failing commercially at the time, has since been reevaluated and deemed the band's finest hour however personally i still prefer the stunning debut album by a small margin. The album featured 12 tracks that were supposed to represent different dreams and is a loose concept album theme of sort but remains nebulous to the listener as to exactly what it all really is supposed to mean.

The album's title refers to the 1961 horror film "Mr Sardonicus" which strangely told the story of a man whose face was frozen into a horrifying grin while robbing his father's grave. Now how's that for weird? Sort of describes SPIRIT's giddy uplifting sound as they forged ahead into strange unprecedented musical territories only to suffer the alienating effects of the music buying public not really getting it. Like the band's previous releases, TWELVE DREAMS OF DR SARDONICUS embarks on a musical journey that you never know where it's exactly going with dreamy ballad type tracks ("Prelude Nothing To Hide," "Soldier") in complete contrast to boogie rock bluesy numbers such as "Morning Will Come" to trippy psychedelic nuggets such as The Who sounding "Street Worm." Add to that an even more spaced instrumental track in the form of "Space Child." While SPIRIT was gifted in crafting interesting songs with unusual structures and even more unorthodox flavorings, the band never really fine-tuned it all so that the tracks flowed cohesively together without sounding somewhat awkward.

While the music on DR SARDONICUS did successfully compile everything that band had engaged in up to that point, the album still sounded a bit like it was aimlessly drifting around. Likewise the band offered a more complex fusion of their style they had set forth from the debut album. Dr SARDONICUS still offered radio friendly hits in the form of "Animal Zoo" and "Nature's Way" which despite not exactly charting high still were welcomed by FM radio stations that had their pulse on the cutting edge artists forging new paths of creativity. The album was also produced by David Briggs who had helped propel Neil Young's albums to a new level of production savvy and therefore DR SARDONICUS features a warm elegant mix of instrumentation and sound effects. The music had clearly evolved into a totally new grin-bearing beast with some fiery performances complete with a sax solo on "Mr Skin." The band seemed as if it was on top of its game on this album which belies the fact that it would soon splinter apart.

The music of SPIRIT is strange in a way i've never been able to describe but the only word i can come up with is that it's aloof. It seems the talents of the songwriting team never really melded into a seamless whole unlike say The Beatles or The Doors. While the differing members may have reached a truce in terms of musical creativity, they never truly collaborated to merge their styles into one. This gave SPIRIT a rather indecisive feel to its music which was a bit alienating to the instant gratification public who didn't want to think too much about having to work to comprehend music.

Likewise the band wasn't complex enough to break through to the nascent world of progressive rock and therefore straddled the line between the psychedelic 60s and more progressive 70s. Many declare this the band's masterpiece but personally i don't think the band actually delivered a masterpiece but rather four excellent albums that have flaws. For one thing, the band's concept of TWELVE DREAMS OF DR SARDONICUS could have been more streamlined into a cohesive dream sequence of twelve songs that tie together more effectively but rather many of the tracks seem alienated from the others. In retrospect SPIRIT was primarily a band that wrote great songs but didn't deliver them in a classic album form. In this sense they were stuck in the 60s even if their aspirations had the 70s written all over it. Still though, no denying that DR SARDINICUS an excellent album. Lots of great music on here. It's just too bad that SPIRIT never was really given their chance to develop into that tier one band they were clearly capable of becoming. Still though, history has been kind and given them their kudos.