Search - Eric Burdon, Animals :: Twain Shall Meet

LETS SAVE THE EXTINCT ANIMALS!

W. T. Hoffman | Pennsylvania, United States | 01/08/2010

(5 out of 5 stars)

"We should all save the ANIMALS albums from extinction. I've had one of those "EXPERIENCES", we sometimes have, while listening to freak music. Eric Burton has always been recognised as on of the leading blues voices of the British invasion, and his early hits with the (British version) of the ANIMALS are in every 60s GREATEST HITS package in the world. SO, what happened after the lysergic hit his head? I only knew of his being "experienced" from The Animals' amazing live performance of the Stone's "PAINT IT, BLACK" during the 1967 Monterrey Pop Festival. And of course, the song MONTERREY, which recaps Eric's recollections of the event, is the opening number on this album. Think of MONTERREY as the psychedelic flip side to the song WOODSTOCK. After "the bullet" plays, you are drawn into the album, into one of the most flipped out, acid drenched, sonically frightening series of songs recorded during 1968. The songs merge, sitars dominate with harpsicords and string parts on the more "structured songs". In fact, if you mash together Donovan's SUNSHINE SUPERMAN, with the Animal's rhythym section , you arrive at a template used on many of the songs, including JUST THE THOUGHT. Its a ballad that could have sat on King Crimson's first album alongside MOONCHILD. But only in the experimentation achieved on this album, can you REALLY find the scope and depth Eric wanted to portray. JUST THE THOUGHT ends abruptly, as someone starts rewinding, and fumbling with a home reel to reel recorder. Then, a blury, quick demo begins of the next song. CLOSER TO THE TRUTH's nasty sounding DEMO of the song starts, but professional studio vocals are overdubbed, after a few lines of music. After a verse of demo with vocals, the bass and drums kick in, and you 're thrown into a rollercoaster ride of the mind. Eric's visionary lyrics tell us that "Somewhere someone is closer to the truth than you are". The lyrics build on the meaning of who has truth, as the song speeds up, guitar solos flip out, and and the band goes OUT THERE. Way out. FAR out. THEN, when Burdon figures you "got the message", we travel full circle, back to the rough home demo opening. THEN, the recorder is clicked off, THUD. And what happens? You are ejected into the next song, which continues the lyrical theme. This time, YANG to the YIN, the song says YOU are further than someone else. (NO SELF PITY). Utilizing a VERY heavy sitar - harpsecord sound, Eric relates his drug visions. (OK, its a bit drippy hearing someone sing "Have you seen a butterfly's wings, or a blackbird sing?" BUT, it's still got attitude.) After a long sitar solo, Eric throws you into a mind blowing wonderland of ORANGE AND RED BEAMS. This song opens with a nice backing track, string sections, while Eric sings about these Orange and Red Beams, and the birth of a baby. BUT HIS VOCALS HERE, are doubletracked using a reverse delay effect. As a piccalo trumpet and flute colors the song, several overdubs of Eric chant-singing ORANGE ANE RED BEAMS approach the ETERNAL NOW, while your mind floats away in a sea of orange and red voices. How far out can you go? Well, Eric Burdon tried to find out.



ITs a total trip. For those of you who love psychedelic music, THE TWAIN SHALL MEET is one of the best from the Genre. The rest of the album, might be more familier due to another hit single. SKY PILOT is almost 8 minutes long, including a fighter plane battle in the middle of the song. (no doubt a lot of vietnam vets had PTS flashbacks during this song, from overdubbed guitars soloing while the plane takes off, gets shot down, etc.) WE LOVE YOU LIL connects to the end of SKY PILOT. After starting with just Eric whistling, an acoustic folk song begins. After a little bit, the song turns HEAVY, with guns and warfare in the backround, and the tolling of the death bell. At nearly 12 minutes long, WE LOVE YOU LIL is a sonic recap of the whole album, a total mash up of everything bizarre that came before it. When this extended flip out ends, you're presented with a BAGPIPE SONG for a minute or so. Its introduces the penultimate freak out song, "WE"RE ALL ONE". As a closer to an album that starts with the flower power of MONTEREY, then leads you thru spirituality and visionary beauty into warfare and fighter jets, we are left with a message of peace, and unity. WE ARE ALL ONE. Eric revs up the tempo at the end, horns and sitars fight for sonic dominance, until strings softly win out, and set you back down SOFTLY to earth, only to lift off again into one last flashback of sitar acid madness. As the last rev up turns to a flood of flutes gracing a beautiful sonic landscape, as Eric dosed addled mind reminds us that "Now you should know by now". (and if that makes sense, then youre dosed too.) AND THEN ITS OVER. An album that's a HEAVY DUTY MIND FREAK!



And what more can you say than that? If you have music by Donovan, Traffic, Love, Pink Floyd, Capt. Beefheart, or other classics from 1967-68, you know what you 're getting into. But I assure you, this is a psychedelic masterpiece, and a wierd one at that. No doubt Eric Burdon's didactic, heavy confrontational stance against what he considered the "straight world", drives the wierd, hippy daydream vibe on the album. But isnt that why we listen to psychedelic music? No, its not as good as the Beatles or Stones best work, but its still THE ANIMALS, and THEY ARE DOSED to their eyelids on...something. Like the previous Animals album (WINDS OF CHANGE), I'm happy I discovered this album, and frustrated that it took me so long to uncover this forgotten treasure of the Hippy era. Recommended to all who fly the freak flag."