Strange Days review

More psychedelic, organ based rock from The Doors. Judging by the strength of their debut album, this should be pretty good.

Tracks:

1. Strange Days: 9/10 despite sounding like the soundtrack of a jokey Halloween arcade game at times, this mysterious and creepy tune gets into your head and stays there, sticking out as a particularly strong psychedelic album opener.

2. You're Lost Little Girl: 8/10 a typical good Doors song: a strong organ instrumental, pretentious but effective lyrics and a wonderful sense of strangeness and uniqueness to it all.

3. Love Me Two Times: 5/10 this one could have come from any other band since it's utterly generic and offers a mildly diverting baseline and little else.

4. Unhappy Girl: 8/10 this one's more effective. The instrumental is chilling yet gripping at the same time.

5. Horse Latitudes: 7/10 more a spoken poem than a song. It's a bit weird, but you have to admire it's refusal to obey conventions or make any sense.

6. Moonlight Drive: 8/10 it repeats itself, but it's another enjoyable and well executed tune.

7. People Are Strange: 7/10 the metaphors used in this song are not just twisted and brilliant, they also ring true. Sadly, rather than carry on being inventive this lazily recycles it's previous lyrics, so it's only half a great song.

8. My Eyes Have Seen You: 8/10 this one doesn't make an awful lot of sense, but it's very engaging and gleefully insane.

9. I Can't See Your Face in My Mind: 8/10 quieter but just as engaging, this is certainly not one of the unmemorable penultimate tracks often seen on albums.   

10. When the Music's Over: 8/10 once again a Doors album ends with a long 10 minute apocalyptic epic. This does ramble on, but musically and lyrically it is fairly brilliant.

Best song: Strange Days
Worst song: Love Me Two Times

Summary: Technically accomplished and madder than King Lear wandering the heath, this is a pretty strong second album. Most of the songs don't stick out while some of the more well regarded tracks on here are overrated, but it's an enjoyable listen overall. The organ, Jim Morrison's excellent vocals and lyrics and the uniqueness of the music make this stand out among of the other 60s counterculture music acts, and The Doors should not be forgotten.



Final rating: 8/10