REVIEWS:
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(reviewed by Casey Brennan)
This hard-rockin' acid-rock band was formed in good old sunny L.A., shortly before the release of this first album. Led by the macho lead singer John Kay, a leather-clad fellow who had a love for riding motorcycles, the band had a successful string of singles through-out their short five year career. The first of these famous singles, the mighty biker anthem "Born To Be Wild", is found right on here. It's a rip-roaring classic that contains a great simple hard rock riff, driving organ, and husky rough-voiced vocals. It's also the same song that pretty much coined the term for the genre of heavy metal with its' lyric "heavy metal thunder!!!". As the obvious highlight on this guitar-heavy debut from these five hippiesh-looking, but not so hippiesh guys, it pretty much made the band into rock heroes for the year.
That's not the only thing redeeming the album though, as there are at least several other very good tracks to choose from. The lead-off track "Sookie Sookie" is a hard-hitting organ-drenched rock number with a good guitar tone (featuring that high and trebly late-60's guitar sound) and dumb, but catchy chorus of 'Sookie, Sookie, Sookie woooh', "The Ostrich" is a memorable rocker with enjoyable fast-paced choruses, and "Everybody's Next One" and "Take What You Need" are two nice melodic piano rockers. In particular, those two latter tracks show a more poppy side to the band, as does the harpsichord-laden ditty "A Girl I Knew", which is a minor gem on here.
Unfortunately, the rest of the songs on this spotty debut album are pretty much what you would call your average filler. The straight-forward, bluesy rock n' roller "Berry Rides Again", plus lengthy and slowly plodding guitar heavy-tunes like "Desperation", "The Pusher" (about you guessed it, a drug dealer), and "Your Wall's Too High", are just merely ok. However, I will admit that the latter track can be an enjoyable listen with its' great guitar-break at the three-and-a-half minute mark, and tasteful guitar playing through-out. With that said, nothing good can really be said about the lame Willie Dixon blues cover "Hoochie Coochie Man" - which is just as I said, lame. As it is, Steppenwolf, like most of the studio releases following it, is a rather nice listen with a fair amount of filler and several very good tracks thrown in.
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Was not formed in L.A. They were Sparrow from Canada, who then went to San Francisco, then to L.A. and were renamed Steppenwolf by their new manager.
(reviewed by Casey Brennan)
From the corny cover, which shows Mickey Mouse soldiers attacking ...um... something, to the poorly-produced and quaint-sounding acid-rock inside, this is one smudge of an album. It's most notable for containing the hook-filled rocker "Rock Me", which has a distinctive drum/organ jam at the two minute mark, as well as the hard-edged ballad "It's Never Too Late", and the heavy bluesy acid-rocker "Jupiter Child". No real classics there, but the first one comes kinda close. Anyway, a lot of the album is padded out by a bunch of little good tunes such as "God Fearing Man" (this one probably has the best melody, or at least the most memorable one), "Chicken Wolf" (a heavy acid-rock organ sound carries this quickly-paced rocker), "Lovely Meter" (a generic British-sounding acoustic ditty that actually sounds quite nice), and "Don't Cry" (a messy organ-led rocker with silly voices at the end).
But with all the good must come the lame! A Steppenwolf album without lots of filler, is like a Beatles album with tons of filler. And that's pretty impossible. So within this messy collection we also get two very short and un-funny tunes by the names of "Sleeping Dreaming" and "Cat Killer", along with a dated and generic mid-tempo rocker called "Round And Down". Then there is a generic gospel-type tune called "Happy Birthday" to close out the album, and an unmemorable ballad named "She'll Be Better". More like "She'll be worse" if she listens to this. Well, ok it's not that bad. Just regular filler. A weird title for the album too... At Your Birthday Party. Hmmm. I sure wouldn't play this shit at my birthday party. Ok, just joking. It's a rather pleasant listen, pretty much of the same quality as the heavier debut album from the year before (maybe just a tad worse). As usual, several good songs, and a bunch of decent, unmemorable filler.
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(reviewed by Casey Brennan)
What happened here? All that can be said is that by the time of Steppenwolf 7 the band seem to have almost completely run out of the little creative energy that they actually had. Being that it's their fifth album in two years or so, it really sounds like they only spent a few days recording this. Overall, it is a much less diverse and boring set of songs when compared to At Your Birthday Party (I'm not sure about Monster though, which I haven't heard yet - but from the looks of George Starostin's review on it, it might be just as boring as this one... if not worse). Anyway, Steppenwolf seem to concentrate on pumping out one loud and boring hook-less blues number after another.
It doesn't help that they decide to put three of these stinky mid-tempo blues rockers in a row at the very beginning of the album; it just makes me want to quickly turn off the album before I fall asleep. While they are competent blues numbers at least, "Ball Crusher"', "Forty Days and Forty Nights", and "Fat Jack", are not tastefully done or memorable in anyway. I would rather listen to "Jupiter's Child" or even "Round and Down" from the third album over this - the former is at least memorable for its' heaviness, and the latter at least catchy and somewhat fun. I must thank god for the mostly acoustic half ballad/rocker "Renegade" then, which is the best track off of the album by a long shot. As a six minute plus centerpiece, it contains the albums' best hook with the line 'my birthplace would be hard to find, it's changed so many times', along with memorable electric guitar and organ soloing in the lengthy middle section.
The album doesn't quite wallow in the mud with the next two tracks either. While filler at heart, "Foggy Mental Breakdown" does set down a catchy hard rock groove that I can enjoy half-way through before it gets irritating, and "Snowblind Friend" is a passable anti-drug song with great drum licks and no real melody. Only to further confirm my opinion that this release is pretty much a throwaway though is the organ-driven rockin' blues dud "Who Needs Ya' " and the strikingly weird-named "Earschplittenloudenboomer", which despite an interesting title, is a sloppy half-baked instrumental (add to the fact that it contains some cheesy horns). Great bomb sound at the end, however. And then the "Hippo Stomp" comes and goes as a rocker that doesn't sound so bad placed at the end of this album; it does contain some well-needed energy in the choruses. Even so, what's with the band having a song-title with an animal name on every album anyway?... 'The Ostrich', 'Chicken Wolf', and now 'Hippo Stomp'?
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The artwork is bizarre; no doubt. If one were to go by the front cover - the music would be by some early incarnation of Iron Maiden. Even weirder is the back where keyboardist Goldie McJohn is taking a picture of the band in which he is also posing, all under a giant pair of hippie legs. I wont even discuss the inside - you just have to see it for yourself.
The music, on the other hand; is intelligent, well executed, cleverly produced (Richard Podolor). There is some tape hiss but overall this album was recorded well and sounds good. There's a little bit of unnatural stereo separation of instruments - some of it is intentional for effect- at other times it's a bit distracting.
The music has aged well, and many of the lyrical themes are still relevant. The autobiographical "Renegade" (referring to John Kay's childhood flight out of East Germany) is the standout track and album centerpiece. Kay's major gift was/is to sing with conviction and emotion. His lyrics were often profound politically and bore poetic weight - all this in seeming stark contrast to the dark/rocker/biker image that seemingly kept the band afloat or bogged down..depending on how you look at it. Fine guitar work by Larry Byrom; and Jerry Edmunton was seriously overlooked as a solid and inventive rock drummer, (also sporting a fine, raspy tenor voice a la Don Henley - a bit cooler, though). The jam in the middle, unlike some of their other ones, is not silly noodling but rather a fine showpiece of how the band had become adept at playing off of each other. This tune alone is worth the ten bucks.
But there's more good stuff. "Foggy Mental Breakdown" is superb with memorable riffs and melodies, a funky groove and a nicely arranged middle section featuring harmonica. The lyrics are surprisingly introspective: "Let the loneliness roll in like the foggy mountain dew, wipe the madness from my eye til my anger slowly dies, when the shadow play begins I'll be watchin' through the night - til I find myself again".
"Who Needs You" is an enjoyable and tasteful if lesser rocker, sporting yet another smart and original riff that's later used to close out this tale, about a user friend who's outstayed his welcome.
"Forty Days and Forty Nights" I really like although for all intents and purposes it's just a jaunty blues number. The performance, particularly Kay's vocal and harmonica; has just got something real appealing to it.
Whether you want to or not; you'll probably wind up liking Hoyt Axton's "Snowblind Friend" (about a drug addict) despite it's sentimentality. Like everything else on the album -it's a high end performance.
Even the one tune that could be considered filler - the instrumental "earschplittenloudenboomer" is played well, the brass...? Well, this was 1970 after all. It's just a 5 minute piece of atmospheric comedy that happens to alternate between broodiness and lightweight funk. And yes - the explosion at the end is pretty cool.
As some other critics have noted - Steppenwolf consistently came up just shy of greatness, and this album is no exception; but they certainly flirted with it from time to time.
Overall rating: 8
Kenny MacKenzie
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