IN-A-GADDA-DA-VIDA

Iron Butterfly´s second album In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida is a massive improvement over their debut album which was released earlier that same year. I think Heavy lacked in many places. It was overall a really imature effort. Something has happened with Iron Butterfly in that short time between those two albums ´cause In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida is a really good album.

The music is heavily organ driven psychadelic sixties rock. The first five songs are pretty basic rock tunes with Doug Ingle´s distinct and stoned vocals in the center. There are also some pretty good guitar playing here though just listen to the lick in Termination, the acoustic playing in My Mirage or the heavy fuzzy distortion in the trademark riff in In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida. The organ is the lead instrument here though and I hear some The Doors influences here but weirdly enough also some church organ tendencies. It makes the organ playing a bit more exciting that there are psalm influences too IMO.

The titel song has to be mentioned specifically as it is a long jam song. It starts out with the heavy section with singing but soon turns into a psychadelic jam with guitar, organ, drum and bass soloing. It might seem a bit old fashion to those of us who weren´t there, but personally I find it pretty rewarding if I´m in the right mood. The song ends with the vocal section again. This song is a real sixties classic if there ever was one. In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida has been covered by many bands throughout history but on a funny note I´ll mention one of the more special ones. Slayer the american extreme metal band made a cover of the song which worked pretty well. It´s just to show how many people was influenced by this music.

The musicians are competent and there are no sloppy playing as on the debut. Note that the bassist Lee Dorman would later play with Captain Beyond and even compose the music for that bands second album Sufficiently Breathless. Doug Ingle´s vocals are very distinct and I guess they are an aquired taste.

The sound quality is very good for the time. There is the typical sixties thing with mixing the different instruments in specific sides of the soundscape. I think it´s rather charming.

All in all this is a classic album from 1968. I can imagine the amount of drugs being consumed while listening to this. I´ll give it a 4 star rating, as I really enjoy this album and as it is a true classic.