The Animals

Eric Burdon & The Animals – Winds Of Change (Remastered) (1967/2021)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/192 kHz | Time – 43:56 minutes | 1,86 GB | Genre: Rock
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Universal Records

Winds of Change opened the psychedelic era in the history of Eric Burdon & the Animals – although Burdon’s drug experiences had taken a great leap forward months earlier with his first acid trip, and he and the group had generated some startlingly fresh-sounding singles in the intervening time, it was Winds of Change that plunged the group headfirst into the new music. The record was more or less divided into two distinctly different sides, the first more conceptual and ambitious psychedelic mood pieces and the second comprised of more conventionally structured songs, although even these were hard, mostly bluesy and blues-based rock, their jumping-off point closer to Jimi Hendrix than Sonny Boy Williamson. The band’s new era opened with waves washing over the title track, which included sitar and electric violin, while Burdon’s voice, awash in reverb, calmly recited a lyric that dropped a lot of major names from blues, jazz, and rock. “Poem by the Sea” was a recitation by Burdon, amid a swirl of echo-drenched instruments, and it led into one of the group’s handful of memorable covers from this period, “Paint It Black” – driven by John Weider’s electric violin and Vic Briggs’ guitar, and featuring an extended vocal improvisation by Burdon, their approach to the song was good enough to make it part of the group’s set at the Monterey International Pop Festival that June, and also to get a spot in the documentary movie that followed. “The Black Plague” opens with a Gregorian chant structure that recalls “Still I’m Sad” by the Yardbirds, and was another vehicle for Burdon’s surreal spoken contributions. There were also, as with most of the group’s work from this period, a few easily accessible tracks that could make good singles, in this instance “Good Times” and “San Franciscan Nights,” a Top Ten record in various countries around the world in the last quarter of 1967, although, as Alan Clayson points out in his notes, the latter song was overlooked in England for nearly 12 months after its release elsewhere, and then appeared as the B-side to the relatively straightforward, brooding, moody rocker “Anywhere.” Burdon was so inspired by Jimi Hendrix’s music that he wrote one of the psychedelic era’s rare “answer” songs, “Yes I Am Experienced,” as an homage to the guitarist; the latter’s influence could also be heard in “It’s All Meat,” the LP’s closing track, and a song that calls to mind an aspect of this band that a lot of scholars in earlier years overlooked – the fact that Briggs, Weider, et al. had the skills to make music in that style that was convincing and that worked on record, on their terms.

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Eric Burdon & The Animals – The Twain Shall Meet (Remastered) (1968/2021)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/192 kHz | Time – 43:20 minutes | 1,82 GB | Genre: Rock
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Universal Records

The mix of topical songs, surreal antiwar anthems, and diffuse psychedelic mood pieces on The Twain Shall Meet is extremely ambitious, and while much of the group’s reach exceeds its grasp, it’s all worth a trip through as a fascinating period piece. In fact, the mood pieces predominate, mostly underwritten and under-rehearsed, and recorded without the studio time needed to make them work. “Just the Thought” and “Closer to the Truth” are dull and unfocused, even as psychedelia, while “No Self Pity” and “We Love You Lil” are above average musical representations of mind-altered states. “We Love You Lil” opens with a clever play on the old popular tune “Lili Marlene” that leads to an extended guitar jam and ethereal backing that rather recalls the early work of Focus, among other progressive rock acts. “All Is One” is probably unique in the history of pop music as a psychedelic piece, mixing bagpipes, sitar, oboes, horns, flutes, and a fairly idiotic lyric, all within the framework of a piece that picks up its tempo like the dance music from Zorba the Greek while mimicking the Spencer Davis Group’s “Gimme Some Lovin’.” On the more accessible side are “Monterey,” a distant precursor to Joni Mitchell’s more widely heard post-festival anthem “Woodstock,” with some clever musical allusions and a great beat, plus lots of enthusiasm; and the shattering “Sky Pilot,” one of the grimmest and most startling antiwar songs of the late ’60s, with a killer guitar break by Vic Briggs that’s marred only by the sound of the plane crash in the middle.

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Eric Burdon & The Animals – Love Is (Remastered) (1968/2021)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/192 kHz | Time – 01:06:14 minutes | 2,79 GB | Genre: Rock
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Universal Records

It’s an eyebrow-raising experience to encounter the cover of “River Deep, Mountain High” that opens the Animals 1968 album, Love Is. Clocking in at nearly seven and a half minutes, it’s the weirdest version of the song ever cut. Self-produced by the band, it juxtaposes vocalist and bandleader Eric Burdon’s staggering abilities as a rhythm & blues singer with few peers with then-modern-day psychedelia. The Phil Spector, Ellie Greenwich, Jeff Barry-penned vehicle for Ike & Tina Turner was never envisioned like this. There are moments of pure greatness in the track, a rough, garage-hewn rock and R&B foundation underscored by Burdon’s blues wail is, unfortunately, completely messed over by the sound effects and his insistence on yelling “Tina, Tina, Tina…” ad nauseam in the bridge. And this is just the beginning. This version of the Animals contained enough serious players that they should have known better: Burdon, keyboardist Zoot Money, drummer Barry Jenkins, bassist John Wieder, and a young guitarist who’d been booted from Soft Machine after a very brief period named Andy Summers. For those who found charm and even inspiration in the Twain Shall Meet and Winds of Change – both recorded in San Francisco – Love Is may hold some sort of place in the heart. For those who looked back to the Animals catalog that included such dynamic albums as Animalism and Animalization as well as a slew of killer four-track EPs, this must have seemed like the bitter end. On the other hand, this trainwreck of an album has some interesting moments – mainly for hearing how hard they tried to imitate other acts who were successful while at the same time trying to forge a new identity from the ruins of who they once were as a band whose day had come and gone. The utterly awful reading here of “Ring of Fire” is almost laughable. Other covers include a rave-up cum psychedelia version of Sly Stone’s “I’m an Animal,” Traffic’s “Coloured Rain,” and the Bee Gees “To Love Somebody.” The latter – which has to be heard to be believed – begins with Summers playing Chuck Berry licks as an intro before it slows down into a completely over-the-top Don Covay-styled soul shot with Burdon underscored by a female backing chorus which counters to push him into the stratosphere. Despite its cheesy organ sound, it has enough power drumming, crunchy guitar, and a neat little piano break by Money to make it work. It’s easily the best thing here even if it is absolutely mental. Burdon had heard ex-bandmate Chas Chandler’s young guitar protégé Jimi Hendrix’s “Third Stone from the Sun” from the Jimi Hendrix Experience’s debut album as well. In fact, he enlisted Money’s buddy, guitarist Steve Hammond (of Johnny Almond’s Music Machine) to come up with a long-form psychedelic suite that evoked it and some of Pink Floyd’s weirder experiments at that time. The end result, “Gemini,” is hysterically funny now, and must have just seemed to be ecstatically drug-addled tomfoolery at the time. The closer, “The Madman (Running Through The Fields),” by Summers and Money would have been a killer single if they’d edited the acid-fried middle section out of it. As it stands, Love Is was a mess from a band who, once great, had completely lost its way and was on its last legs.

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Eric Burdon & The Animals – Every One Of Us (Remastered) (1968/2021)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/192 kHz | Time – 46:12 minutes | 1,99 GB | Genre: Rock
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Universal Records

Every One of Us is an album by Eric Burdon & The Animals. It was released in 1968 on MGM Records.

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