Spirit - The Twelve Dreams of Dr. Sardonicus

The Twelve Dreams of Dr. Sardonicus (1970) ****

Their fourth album, being yet another commercial failure, broke up the original quintet; too bad, since the final album by the original Spirit (several other incarnations would continue on into the '70s) is certainly their most artistically successful.  It's the one most hailed by the critics for what that's worth, and for once the praise is deserved.  It's not a psychedelic masterpiece - that would be The Family That Plays Together - as the band are writing tighter than ever before (keyboardist John Locke's rather uninteresting instrumental "Space Child" very much an exception).  It's rather a consolidation of strengths as the band have finally gotten a firm grasp on their own unique sound, while not ignoring the songwriting side of things as they did on their previous LP.  The songs are all concise and varied enough in their pop-rock folk-jazz styles to each remain distinctive (unlike the second album) and yet represent a cohesive collection, not an unfocused eclectic sprawl (unlike the first album).  The big news is that Randy California is taking up a lion's share of the songwriting this time out, penning a grand total of seven tunes, as opposed to former chief songwriter Jay Ferguson's mere four.  Nevertheless, Ferguson still manages to outshine the teen guitar prodigy by penning the four best tunes.  "Mr. Skin," is a delightfully brassy rocker (an ode to Ed Cassidy's solar-powered sex panel), and the uproarious "Animal Zoo," are clear highlights.  The dusky moodpiece, "When I Touch You," and the crackling "Street Worm," with its zig-zag arrangement setting up California fret-running, are nearly as fine.  California's tunes aren't quite as strong but only not as quite, opening the album with the two-punch of "Prelude/Nothing to Hide," with its quirky "we're married to the same bride," chorus, and the even better, "Nature's Way," a pretty and emotionally moving ballad that's clearly a hippie environmentalist admonition.  "Life Has Just Begun," is another touching acoustic ballad, balanced by following with the funky rocker, "Morning Will Come."  "Love Has Found a Way," earns the moniker, 'psychedelic love ballad,' as it gains its rhythm from a backwards tape collage courtesy John Locke while California's sweetly harmonized tune and lyrics are completely conventional - the juxtaposition is quite effective, if a bit dated.  The four bonus tracks are rather disposable this time - a couple of lackluster rockers and a pair of alternate takes.  The words 'lost classic' get bandied around a bit in regards to this album, and it's on the money shot - believe the hype.



Spirit - Clear Spirit

Clear Spirit (1969) ***

This is clearly an uneven rush job that shows the band thin on material, but it's not without its moments.  The opener, "Dark Eyed Woman," is a fantastic thudding hard rocker that deserved to be a hit, and far and away the strongest track; nothing else on the record comes close.  The album is padded out with not one but three instrumentals, two of which are modestly amusing as background music, "Ice" and the title track; apparently these were intended for a soundtrack to a movie that never emerged.  The other instrumental, pianist John Locke's "Caught," is a jazzy shuffle, and since I couldn't tell a Miles Davis from a Thelonious Monk number if I'm not looking at the title credits, I'll shut my mouth about jazz instrumentals.  Another problem is that around half the vocal numbers are lazily written blues-rock numbers that rely on the by-the-numbers chord sequences that make most blues and country numbers so boring and predictable.  "Ground Hog," is sort of interesting in its gruntingly funky way, but it's also supremely irritating; "Apple Orchard," is just a bloozy waste, devoid of anything special; while "I'm Truckin'," which sounds like the Allman Bros. in tight three-minute blues-pop mode, starts off generically but is easily redeemed by the "just a little bit longer, longer," bridge.  "Policeman's Ball,"  is a novelty light swing number with vaguely politicized lyrics concerning the Chicago Democratic convention of the previous year (not that I'd know if I hadn't read the liner notes).  "Give a Life, Take a Life," and "So Little Time to Fly," are pleasant folk-poppy hippie mid-tempo ballads in the vein of the first album, and "Cold Wind," is a soporific ballad in the vein of the second album that has vocals but could have just as easily been another one of the instrumentals.  The album concludes with a joint band composition, "New Dope in Town," that functions as a rock/jazz micro-suite, beginning as an upbeat pop number before breaking down in the middle into jazzy swing mode, with tasty piano and slide guitar solos.  As for the bonus tracks, they easily redeem the album:  the A-side, "1984," a doomy but hard-driving and pop-catchy anti-dystopian anthem (based on George Orwell, but you knew that, dummy) is one of the band's greatest highlights, and its flipside, "Sweet Stella Baby," is another track well worth your time and likewise superior in quality to most of the original album it's attached to.  The other two bonus tracks are unreleased outtakes and considerably less stellar:  "Coral," is just another jazzy instrumental, and while, "Fuller Brush Man," shows some promise, it's yet another case where it's easy to see why the band left such an undeveloped number off their albums.  Why they didn't choose to develop it is another mystery.  In sum, this unfocused hodge-podge of bluesy filler, soundtrack instrumentals, and handful of decent pop numbers is easily their weakest album, but not entirely unworthwhile.

Spirit - The Family That Plays Together

The Family That Plays Together (1968) ****

A major improvement over the debut, which is why I only rated it half a star higher :>}  It's two steps forward at the expense of one step back:  the songs are more tightly composed and the band finally envelopes itself comfortably into its own sound (that primordial quasi-mystical soup).  There's a lot less jazzy jamming (not that there still ain't plenty) and more directioned pop-rock tunage.  The lone step back is that, comfortable in their signature sound, there's little of the wild variety of styles found on the debut.  This album is all of a piece, so if you're expecting a break from the cohesive monotony, you'll be sorely disappointed.  The album consists almost solely of dreamy mid-tempo, moody balladic pieces heavy on misty atmospherics, but with an assured grip on melodics, harmonies, and stately pop hooks.  OK, so the opener and (Spirit's only) hit single, "I Got a Line on You," breaks the formula and stands out as the most exciting track.  It's not the most obvious or conventional of pop hooks, but as soon as the drums/piano intro comes pounding in and California's guitar begins wailing, and then the surging plead of the vocals waft in, you're hooked all the way to the "let me let me love you all year long" crescendo.  It's a heckuva a single, and reviewing the rest of the album, now it's easy to see why Spirit weren't bigger than they deserved to be:  there's virtually nothing else on the album that could remotely qualify as a single followup.  The rest are all album tracks, not singles material, and if upon the first or three listens they allow flow together interchangeably as one long extended track, it's one heckuva mood piece.  The tunes are brassier, leaning more heavily on the jazzy side of the band than the folk side they displayed on the acoustic hippie pop that took up most of the debut.  That's a more or less unqualified good thing, since a little jazzy swing I much prefers to hippy strumming.  I would try to do a track by track review but even I'm pressed to identify clear highlights and lowlights, as the sound and song quality are so uniform.  "Jewish," stands out uglily as a spoken word goof (in Hebrew, gettit?) but that's the only real gaffe.  The gambler's tale, "Silky Sam," interludes not with another guitar/drum/piano solo but with the sounds of a card game.  Modern day kids may be baffled by this track, but aged as I am I may be the last pre-video game generation to remember the days when people played cards together as social entertainment.  "Drunkard," and "Dream Within a Dream," are lovely melodic creations, the former telling the sad familiar tale of a hobo tramp and his travails, and the latter reminding me of the Taoist philosopher Zhuangzi and his dream of the butterfly (am I a man dreaming I was a butterfly, or a butterfly dreaming I am a man?).  Probably not, but I fancy Spirit's Eastern-influenced mysticism leans more toward the Chinese harmonic logical balance of elements than the Indian guru-ism most of the other Summer of the Maharishi bands were into.  As for the bonus tracks, there are some nice instrumentals, and some pop songs that show undeveloped promise - it's easy to see why those weren't included on the album, but are adequately pleasant additions.

Spirit - s/t

Spirit (1968) ***1/2

Spirit were a phenomenally talented band that inexplicably got passed during the '60s, the one decade in rock history in which commercial and artistic success more often than not happened to coincide.  Perhaps it's not surprising; aside from the Brit-boppy, "Uncle Jack," nothing here screams hit material - clearly a 'thinking man's' album band they were, as their compositions rather complexly combine elements of jazz, folk, pop, hard rock, and psychedelia into one soupy, quasi-mystical brew.  The jazz element arrives courtesy of Ed Cassidy, who born in 1923 was a long-experienced bop-era drummer and his inventive professionalism shows:  he's one of the very best rock drummers ever, and last I checked the gentleman was still kicking it live, well into his 80s!  Most of the songs are penned by singer Jay Ferguson, who proves a highly talented songwriter whose compositions, at this point, generally show more spirit and promise than actual fruition.  Oh, it's not as if the songs aren't mildly hooky in their own way, it just takes some time for the hooks to sink in; the band would improve on this oversight on later albums.  Here is the Spirit in embryo.  The star of the show, however, is teenage guitarist (and stepson of Cassidy) Randy California, he who legendarily learned his chops from Jimi himself (Hendrix that is, not Page - but we'll get on to Zep's plagiarism in just a bit).  His rich, tasteful buzz of a guitar tone is a wonder of nature, and his fluid yet thick bends and curves instantly vault him into the category of guitarists that I find most pleasurable to listen to.  That's a relief, as the band have a penchant for launcing into jazzy instrumental breaks unexpectedly in the middle of their hippie pop songs - not jams, the solos are far too structured for that.  This works well on the doomily aggressive rock opener, "Fresh Garbage," and the far doomier and less aggressive, "Mechanical World," (according to the liner notes, inspired by bassist Mark Andes morbidly obsessed with death while confined to bed with the flu!) - the easy manner in which the band effortlessly switches styles and tempos mid-song puts them miles ahead in terms of professionalism than your average West Coast psychedelic band of the period.  No way were Jefferson Airplane, Moby Grape, Quicksilver Messenger Service, the Grateful Dead, or the Doors half as technically accomplished - this almost feels like proto-prog rock at points.  I should mention at this point the album's most famous (infamous?) track:  a brief instrumental entitled "Taurus," that upon first hearing you'll slowly begin to recognize as....yep, the acoustic intro to "Stairway to Heaven," which Jimmy Page ungenerously lifted lock, stock, and smoking jacket from California without any credit to Randy.  Alas, after the terrific first four tracks, the material grows pleasant but thin - it's nice mellow hippie-pop for the most part, with little jazzy interludes to keep the momentum from growing too mellow and banal.  Still, a very fine album that showcases a great band flashing their chops greatly, even if the songwriting is a tad bit weak.  It's not as if the likes of "Gramaphone Man" or "Straight Arrow," are unlikable, it's just that I find little to say about them; they're pleasant little hippie tunes on the folk-poppy side, nothing more or less.  And fitting with the times, the band has to end the album with a ten-minute instrumental, "Elijah"; as a jam band, Spirit were better at this thing than most (just compare the travesties the likes of Love were filling up entire sides with for comparison), but it's still a ten-minute, self-indulgent, meandering instrumental jam.  The bonus tracks are more of the same - a couple of throwaway instrumentals, another ten-minute alternate run through "Elijah," and "If I Had a Woman," which sounds like an instrumental they hastily threw some words on top at the last minute (the lyrics are pretty dumb, repetitive, and lacking a clear vocal melody).