I Talk To The Wind: Prog Blog and Reviews

Review 46, The Doors, The Doors, 1967

'F**k yeah'

The Doors are rather an unusual outfit. On the one hand, you have full-blown psychedelic insanity with no respect for song structures, on the other, you have a blues and pop-structured output with a unique sound (mostly due to Ray Manzarek's love for the organ) and Morrison's bizarre and morbid lyrics. This album contains The Doors' three obvious staples: Break On Through, Light My Fire and The End, and those songs alone would be reason to buy the album, but the rest is generally excellent, with an occasional example of something that doesn't quite match up (Whisky Bar, especially). Essential album for anyone who likes psychedelia, which happens to include me.

Break On Through introduces the album incredibly, with a real beast of a concise (2:30) prog-pop-rock song. Morrison's brilliantly violent lyrics ('Found an island in your arms/A country in your eyes/Arms that chain us! Eyes that lie! Break on through to the other side!') and maddened vocals dominate the song, along with a guitar riff and a modified Bossa Nova beat. The organ kicks throughout, providing the song with a little more force. A huge favourite of mine. Well-worth cranking up the volume for.

The follower, Soul Kitchen, shows off a greater range of The Doors' appeal. A haunting atmosphere is created by the lyrics and odd harmony choices, and the rock moments are no less impressive. A bass hums carelessly in the background, preparing the changes in the song, while the organ alternately places itself behind the rest of the instruments, and over them during the rock moments. Robby Krieger's guitar provides a couple of twists over it, including a brief bluesy solo.

The Crystal Ship shows the more gentle qualities of The Doors, and their ability to create grandeur without any pomp, Jim Morrison's soft vocal is surprisingly excellent, given how much The Doors' harder moments rely on his raw aggression, and a beautiful contribution on piano from Ray Manzarek really makes the song, as strong as the guitar and organ are. A soft drum part showcases the diversity of John Densmore.

20^th Century Fox is another different piece, with the strained bass sound rather common on this album as a rather dominant instrument. The music is all top notch, with Krieger's guitar as a particular high point. The vocals, however, don't really carry it as effectively as they do other pieces, and naturally, the lyrical content doesn't transfer well across forty years.

Alabama Song (Whisky Bar) is a bit of a weak spot, in my opinion, with an awkward bombardon-like thingummy (presumably from Manzarek) underlying the song with a cheerful two-note beat. The rest of the material, particularly Krieger's mandolin-like guitar contribution, is pretty good. I'm just not particularly impressed with this one.

Light My Fire is another of the classic Doors songs, with a catchy organ riff throughout the verses, as well as an enjoyable rhythm section, with some potent crashes from Densmore. A longer psychedelic instrumental section features an excellent extended organ solo from Manzarek, as well as a guitar solo from Robby Krieger. Morrison's moderately stoned call for drug use is fairly amusing, and actually an excellent vocal performance.

Back Door Man is a cover, with an appropriate nodding bluesy rhythm, vague lyrical improvisation, and warming-up feel. We do basically get the same few bars of music throughout, but with some excellent additions from Krieger and Manzarek, as well as a very well-suited vocal from Morrison. It is a blues, so sounds like one. You have been warned.

I Looked At You is probably the purest pop song on the album, with a foot-tapping rhythm, completely mindless lyrics. Even the organ and guitar feel dancy and rhythmic. To be fair, nothing individually is very offensive, but I just don't get into it as a whole, with way too many repeats of the 'and we're on our way...' section.

End Of The Night features a chilling atmosphere, created mostly by the very slow playing from everyone, almost suspended in time. Krieger's guitar gives slow, curious soloing, with some very well timed movements. Morrison's vocal is equally slow and haunting. Without speeding up, the band can still convey a faster or more immediate burst of movement.

Take It As It Comes is an enjoyable pop song, with the psychedelic feel of the organ and lyrics nicely handled. The organ soloing is extremely good fun, and the bass again works quite nicely, even taking a solo to allow the organ to come in again with a lot more force. Morrison's vocals are again superb.

The album's final piece is probably the bands best-known work, The End. It is a fully psychedelic piece of work, and needs to be appreciated as one. The twists on guitar throughout are absolutely fantastic, and I can't think of another way you could have done the percussion than Densmore's combination of random noises and brief beats, not relying on one sort of drum or a sustained beat for too long at a time. The jungle of organ-work provides a psychedelic and constant, maddening force to the song. Morrison's vocals and lyrical style ('Lost in a Roman/Wilderness of pain/And all. The. Child-ren/Are insane) were made for this song. His untamed aggression gives us the powerful moments of the song, while his softer voice again feels almost-mantric in its conviction.

Of especial note is the section where Morrison narrates the actions of the killer with relish and glee ('He took a face from the ancient gallery!'), and the rest of the band fully support his vocal. The madness, the tragedy, the beauty and the anger of the piece are handled with a demonstrative force, conviction and power throughout, as well as bits of dissonance that are entirely right and a very nice understated conclusion. A masterpiece of progressive rock, if ever there was one. Those who call it boring just don't have the attention span.

I do really love this album as a whole, and any lover of good psych rock (or even people who don't usually care for the genre) should try this out, for historical interest as well as quality. The other albums of The Doors are certainly not without worth, but never again do they reach the sheer force of The End or Break On Through. Very enjoyable, but with a couple of tracks that bring the album down.

Rating: Four Stars

Favourite Track: Break On Through (To The Other Side) [or The End. Really no preference between the two]

---

Review 45, A Passion Play, Jethro Tull, 1973

After the phenomenal success of Thick As A Brick, Anderson and co. approached this next offering with their minds set to creating another one-song album. Whereas Thick As A Brick's approach (several songs welded together, and parts of pt. 1 cleverly reprised with variations in side 2) had a definite charm throughout, this is a much more acquired taste, and it takes time to fully appreciate exactly where the deliberate one-song album pays dividends. I did like this on the first listen, but it took a lot longer to remember the melodic hooks and clever twists in it. In short, the issue is very much one of cohesion and the opportunities for real twists rather than small additions. You can get the same bar of music leading up to a completely different entity, and that does grow on you. All of the flow is more deliberately handled than on Thick, certainly, but with Thick As A Brick, you come to love the problems as well as the greatness, and with the more clinical approach of A Passion Play, that is not the case.

John Anderson's vocals, lyrics, acoustics and flute are excellent as ever throughout the entire album, and the more prominent use of his sax (which isn't generally great, but does contribute to the more chaotic and dissonant sections of the album). We do get some well-applied touches of violin, most obviously on The Story Of The Hare Who Lost His Spectacles. The vocals here may well be his best ever. The other standout player is John Evan, whose hearty application of piano and organ for blocky, delicate, effervescent, grandiose, forceful and hectic sections in equal measure is a welcome development from Thick As A Brick. There are also valuable glimpses of VCS-3 in both the more chaotic and careful sections.

Martin Barre generally seems rather more carefully applied on this one, so carries a lot more weight when he does burst out of the woodwork. He does handle some superb soloing and hard rock lines around the 'All of your best friend's telephones/Never cooled from the heat of your hand' section, as well as some wonderful sax-guitar-VCS-3 interplay on the second half. Barriemore Barlowe has, somewhat deliberately, not so obviously spotlighted the glockenspiel on this one, and gone more typically for occasional bangs on tympani, as well as some very interesting rhythms (I don't pretend to understand them, I just find them interesting) on the drums. He contributes well throughout.

I suppose the player I find least enjoyable on this one is Jeffrey Hammond(-Hammond), who is still an excellent bassist and completely adequate. My small issue is that I loved his connecting bass on Thick As A Brick, with its oozing, flowing feel, and I find the bass on this slightly less distinctive. Nonetheless, his bass throughout is very good, and has its moments.

Now, that's just an overview of the musicianship. The combination of these things, and the masses of high-quality interplay in an initially overwhelming array of styles (whether that's pure acoustic guitar and piano, harder rock, chaotic jams or even the parodic Story Of The Hare Who Lost His Spectacles) is half of what makes this album so exceptional. There are very few moments, if any, where I feel someone is taking away from the mix. The much-loathed Story Of The Hare Who Lost His Spectacles, in my opinion, is a fairly amusing touch, and doesn't clash too much with the rest of the album. I could see it being split over the two sides as an annoyance on vinyl, but I think it's transferred well to CD format.

The other half is the composition. Anderson's writing provides clever catches and multiple cases where you have the same lead-up to two completely different sections and end up virtually tripping over yourself in either admiration or surprise as you hear the twists. The overture is neatly done, and the choices of instruments throughout is grand. This is not at all trying to be Thick As A Brick, it's trying to be a one-song concept album, and, as a rule, it succeeds monumentally at that. I do get a little irritated by the 'Overseer' section, and I think an ending with slightly more aggression or force would have been more desirable, though probably not better-suited, but otherwise the whole piece is fantastic listening.

After sufficient acquisition time, this album definitely begins to grow on you, and there are some incredibly good moments, both lyrically and musically, but its increased panache doesn't always result in an increased charm. Essential listening, for curiosity and interest as well as quality. The flow is impeccable, and the benefits of the one-song album as a basic concept are on display throughout.

If we're arguing objectively whether Thick As A Brick or A Passion Play takes the Tull crown, I'd go without hesitation for A Passion Play, but for personal connection, Thick is a much easier and better sell. For the hard-core proggers this is clearly of much greater interest, and noone should miss out on this album. More trivially, this is one of two albums to which I have been caught playing air acoustics very badly. I'm restraining myself from awarding five stars, but only because my personal preference finds itself elsewhere at the moment.

Rating: Four Stars + (four star album, but so damn interesting that you can't afford to miss it). Objectively, it deserves the full five.
Favourite Track: Ian Anderson unwittingly mocks my review format.

----

Review 44, Crime Of The Century, Supertramp, 1974

The two Supertramp albums I have, this and Crisis? What Crisis?, are surprisingly interesting. Most of the songs are somewhat poppish in nature, and I can't see much that would seriously offend radio play, but there is an inherently different sound to the band. The combination of saxes, clarinet, keys, violin, piano and guitar as lead, background and rhythm instruments at different times (as well as multiple vocalists) is pretty interesting in and of itself, and provides a range of sounds which are just not available to most groups. On Crime Of The Century, this range of sounds comes together with a loose concept (schooling and its results...) and good lyrics to produce an extremely good album. Dreamer, really, is the only piece I find slightly harder to love. Despite that weak point, the album as a whole is very good, and School and Crime Of The Century Itself are both 100% brilliance. Should be tried.

A crooning harmonica solo introduces us to the album. The rhythm guitar, vocals and clarinet then come in, introducing the dark theme and friendly anarchist feel of the piece ('He's coming along'). A dominant bass guides us through the next section, and the drums come in to good effect. A brief, unusual guitar solo from Roger Hodgson with a couple of other additions and then a gripping piano takes us through the extended instrumental section. After a conversational vocal duet (something which'll appear in snatches throughout the album), a more punchy and vicious variation on the earlier 'After school is over' bit. A bluesy scaling up is used to end the piece. An extremely good song.

An e-piano (if I'm right) near-solo leads us into Bloody Well Right, building up a contrast for the sax and guitar to kick in. A hard rock verse, with vicious vocals, chord guitars and bursts of soloing of the highest order bursts out of the woodwork with a definite force. The chorus is amusingly English, and fairly nicely handled, in my opinion. A set of handclaps and a sax solo brings us out neatly.

Hide In Your Shell is a much bigger piece, with a Yes-like mass of lyrics (quantity, not quality) crammed into it. All of the possible elements of Supertramp, piano mostly excluded, are present somewhere in the song. The flow is pretty perfectly handled, and the vocals (except occasionally annoying faux-feminine harmonies) do match the song. We do get (around the five minute mark) a fairly interesting rhythm section, with a more worldy feel from the drumming and a squirming bass to match. Good.

Asylum begins with another piano solo, and develops carefully to include Davies' vocals. The piano is a constant for the first couple of minutes, with a couple of subtle bass and organ additions before the piece's not-quite-chorus (organ, bass and drum driven, with a violin over the top) bursts out. The violins, a warm sax and all sorts of keys are laid over the next verse (even some tubular bells and guitar soloing on the next chorusy bit). Essentially, this is just taking a basic idea, and cleverly adding the band's rather large array of instrumentation over it, as well as being willing to break out of a song structure. Very well done.

Dreamer was initially a huge annoyance, and has become simply not as good as the rest of the album. A fairly repetitive-sounding, but actually, not as poor as first impressions feel, keyboard, with some odder percussion and harmonised vocals in a rather pop-sounding set of harmonies. The final xylo-glocken-phono-spiel thing is a fairly nice touch to lead us up to Rudy, I admit. The problem with this song is that it's just not using the variety that makes the rest of the album great, and thus feels a bit out of place.

Rudy is the third song of the album to begin with a piano solo, but it does develop quite differently to the other two. It does make use of a lot of the instruments available to the band, but rather more separately than, say, Asylum. We get a Hodgson-Davies conversation, superbly backed up by Helliwell's sax and the changing piano at one point. Lyrically, it's probably got the most awkward moment on the album, but the song does feature some brief soloing from the non-piano instruments, which isn't a bad change, and a darker texture at times. Again, an excellent piece of composition.

If Everyone Was Listening is begun with more piano-vocal choices. Dougie Thomson's bass and Bob Benberg's percussion do get an opportunity to show their faces in the chorus. On the second verse, a nice clarinet (and also keys, and violin) supplement the piano. All of the song's basic elements are shown in the second chorus. A gorgeous piano-violin-bass-keys quartet leads us out. Overall, a very likable song.

Crime Of The Century Itself is the album's near-indisputable highlight. A harder twist on the piano features, as does a surprisingly vicious set of keys, bass and drums, and the vocals (Davies) and lyrical themes do come to a head . The piece swells out into an amazing instrumental section, including a slightly Brian May-esque guitar performance, a very clever use of the piano and a lower clarinet as well as the hammond and a set of drums which echo one of the bursts on School. John Helliwell provides a lilting sax solo which is surprisingly refreshing, given how fond I am of a growling Collins or Jaxon sax. The violins and a harmonica guide us out. An absolutely perfect fade, and an amazing conclusion to the album.

The net value of the album is extremely high. I do have a general preference for the darker, jazzier and more brooding sides of prog, but I nonetheless agree that this is a superb album, and shouldn't really disappoint anyone. But, enough yapping from me, the title track is available on PA as a sample (at the time of the review): give it a few listens, and if you don't love that track, don't bother with the album. If you do, then Crime Of The Century should be added to your shopping list post haste.

Rating: Four Stars. Very interesting combination of sounds.

Favourite Track: Crime Of The Century.

----

Mike, that's only because I was trying to get a 1 review/page average for the last couple of pages . Consider yourself lucky.

... Considering lowering a couple of ratings (on first page, if anyone's interested). Might. Might not. I'm trying to be a slightly meaner reviewer at the moment.

Listened to Stratosfear, which was . 4/5ish stars, but I'm not quite sure how I'd rate electronica fairly. Been giving the Caravan stuff a listen or two more. Decided that the problem with If I Could Do It All Over Again is the vocals...