An American Prayer review

The 9th and final album by The Doors. 7 years after the death of Jim Morrison and 5 years after the other membes of the band broke up, the band reunited and recorded backing tracks to some of Jim Morrison's poetry, which was recorded several years earlier before he died.

Tracks:

1. Awake: 6/10 this starts out well before the formerly effective poetry descends into utter pretentiousness.

2. To Come of Age: 4/10 a load of pretentious nonsense.

3. The Poets Dreams: 7/10 this one's quite a bit better than the other 2 to be fair and here it seems to actually mean something.

4. World on Fire: 6/10 it does work, but only because it includes Roadhouse Blues and Riders on the Storm.

5. An American Prayer: 6/10 there are some good lines here but it's still pretentious and the backing tracks are completely halfhearted.

Best song: The Poets Dreams
Worst song: To Come of Age

Summary: Nah, this shouldn't have happened. The truth Morrison was a fantastic singer but a hit-and-miss writer. Some of his lyrics are awesome, but a lot of them are just saying meaningless psychedelic things for the sake of being arty. Without the organ and the other instrumental work to back up the writing here that's more evident than ever. This is a fairly disposable album that has some good moments and some good lyrics but is ultimately a load of pretentious writing backed up by the most halfhearted instrumentals in the history of the band.




Final rating: 5/10