steppenwolf

...first LP from these rockers kicks off with a funky rock number with lashings of organ and the whole thing spirals out from there...stonesian grooves flow through with other small embellishments here and there of anglo '67 psych mixed into the streamlined blues...chuck berry and howlin' wolf get some low down grease smeared over the grooves with tasty proto metal fuzz emanating from the electric strings...contains 'an elergy to groupies and the two tunes that are forever associated with them (born to be wild/pusher) and all these years down the road they still sound unique in a overcrowded market place...one of the harbingers of a new suburban hard rock aesthetic that would encompass such combos as grand funk/aerosmith on a commercial level and sir lord baltimore/jubal in a more esoteric/underground vibe)...in a way they may well have peaked early so as to allow for lesser talents to get the geetus and gold, but the groove still lingers...
...push...

...this here was the third biscuit from the 'wolf and it garnered a lot of negative vibes when it appeared back in '69 mainly due to the fact that it didn't seem to have the commercial groove of the previous two...what tunes they ever seemed to have somehow got lost out on the hippy highway somewhere, got misplaced in all that heavy metal thunder...yep indeed, it looked like the dis was in and they were just another washed up hippy combo riding the rails to nowhere but in truth this was their experimental album and it just took a little longer for the injestion process to get itself in alignment with the old synapses...take away the name and hits and put this out as a disk by a bunch of heads from down the block and it takes on a altered reality, all the numbers are different with some left over psych moves and some percussion fills and funky keyboard swirls and swells which pays a few dividends when played a couple of times through the cans...indeed getting on for 4 decades down the pike and this is a fair 40 minutes blast of goodness from a different time and place...
...party...