review by thomas

When one consider the fact that when the Doors played their blues standards, mostly covers, for example ”Who Do You Love”, ”Close to You” and own compositions such as ”Build Me a Woman” and ”I Will Never Be Untrue”, when the Doors played these and other blues songs in concert it sounded to me like a band trying to play something they shouldn’t or couldn’t do.

So when the last record with Morrison – L.A. Woman – was largely built on a blues/rock ground, a somewhat heavy blues ground, you didn’t exactly bring forth a hoorah. But to my surprise the Doors now managed to avoid what they did live during the past years and play a more fitting heavy blues-rock with some psychedelic moments still intact and then some progressive touches too. Morrison is in good shape, well at least his voice, he sings with a somewhat more mature voice, a little harsher, smokier, more thundering and sometimes he almost growl like a bear. Densmore on drums can’t be in greater shape than on this record. For that matter the whole band is really alive and kicking.

Besides the cover of “Crawling King Snake” and the slow blues shuffle “Cars Hiss by My Window” they managed to sound interesting, fresh and even progressive in both aspects of that word. Exceptional songs include the progressive heavy blues of the long title track and of course the mystic laziness of “Riders on the Storm” with hypnotizing bass and Morrison’s spooky vocal performance. “Love Her Madly” is a lovely Krieger written ballad and “Hyacinth House” with all its lyrical secrets and its killer organ (it’s really to die for) is a stunning and beautiful song. Then we have some really heavy blues based rock in “The Changeling”, “Been Down So Long” and “The WASP (Texas Radio and the Big Beat)”. Here is also the exotic and heavy “L’America” with an overall eerie feeling.