REVIEWS:
Post your comments about Iron Butterfly
(reviewed by Casey Brennan)
HIGH POINTS: In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida. LOW POINTS: My Mirage, Termination, Are You Happy.
Everyone knows the legend of how the title to the band's second release came about so I won't get into that. But what you might not know is that two of the bandmembers in this group are actually nomads (drifters who don't really have a home... they just scrape what they can get); they are the young 17-year old guitarist Erik Brann and bassist Lee Dorman, two guys who actually make up the heart of the Iron Butterfly sound. A heavy and dark acid-psychedelic, though not-loud-at-all sound, is what those two can make come out of their little guitars. Then you have front-man Doug Ingle whose 'heavy' (and kinda groovy) vocal approach just adds more spice to the band. So all in all you get a record that is pretty dated sounding, but uniquely original at the same time.
In any case, how good is the record you ask? Well, in case you don't know, that seventeen minute epic aptly titled "In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida" happens to be on here in all it's glory; it takes up all of side two on this thirty-five minute or so album. This one track has simply hit legendary status in Rock history. It may be a bit overlong and all with that drum solo (most people can't stand drum solos anyway), but taken as a whole it is a masterpiece in trippiness. In an apparently stoned state (don't quote me here though) the band starts off by playing one of the most distinctive riffs of all, possibly even more memorable than "Smoke On The Water" from Deep Purple, before going into an extended guitar and organ solo along the way.
And the production of the song.. well it's just organ, bass, drums, and that guitar sound - which by the way was one more innovative step in the genre of hard Rock - but it creates a creepy stoned-out mood throughout which is worth it just alone. I don't need drugs when I have this song (although drugs would probably make my wacky self a bit more normal). Unfortunately, or fortunately, this track is the only thing that this band is really known for at all. The real reason that I can think of for this is this one lone fact: the band couldn't write competent songs whatsoever. This is what makes the five ditties that precede this mammoth track sound like such extreme filler. That doesn't mean that these songs are particularly bad though. The band had interesting ideas and could write a somewhat catchy tune or two, as in the case of the sorta memorable "Most Anything You Want", a poppy number that, like the other short tunes, takes a lighter approach. It's actually a sort of bubblegummy-sounding kind of song with it's cute Doors-styled organ and background harmonies, but the psychedelic guitar-work ensures that it's a little more than that. So it's probably the strongest short tune on here.
Now I feel like I'm taking what I said back about them not being able to make a competent tune, since the other tunes show themselves as being pretty decent. Only halfway though, because tunes like "My Mirage", "Termination", and "Are You Happy" are only good as interesting timepieces, meaning they are all dated psychedelia with un-original and un-memorable melodies (though they are somewhat enjoyable). One of them even has a clippet of the "Light My Fire" Doors melody in them - though I don't remember which one right now. Oh, and last but not least, "Flowers and Beads" is, like the opener, a decent pop tune as well. So in the end this album contains a 'classic' epic, and five decent less-special tracks. The album can get no lower than the rating i'm gonna give it... so there!
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COMMENTS
I hate to sound obvious but what does the title itself mean? I have always
thought it to me "In the Garden of Eden".
Any thoughts?
Ben
come on this was 1968 for fucks sake! Noone had been making music like this before, so can you blame the record company for putting out one side of Turtles'eque pop and then one side of "hmm, Doors-lite anyone? for when pee wee's gone to bed and mum and dad wanna skin up?" even then "THEY" had every demographic covered.
35 years later this record still has hidden grooves in it (Doug Ingle's spoken word outros in Terminator for one). Justifiably an all time classic record and Jimmy Page had the nous to take this stuff to the industrial heartlands where there were people waiting for The Word...........
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