Label: Sundazed Records (U.S.), SC 11207
Style: Rhythm and Blues, Psychedelic Rock
Country: Los Angeles, California, U.S.
Time: 53:51
Format: Flac Tracks 16/44,1 kHz
Size: 289 Mb
Love
Lost, Sundazed's surprise unearthing of all-but-forgotten 1971 session
tapes (laid down during the band's brief alliance with Columbia
Records), throws a fascinating wrinkle into Love's disintegration.
Veering from captivating to frustrating, charming to maddening, it's a
typically uneven set. Yet there are moments of sheer beauty, and Lee
clearly poured his heart into the grooves. Reinventing himself in the
image of his recently deceased friend Jimi Hendrix, interweaving blazing
rock with sublime, fly-on-wall acoustic tracks, Dear You, as the
Columbia album was to be called, had enough mojo to fuel a plausible
comeback.
Evidence that Hendrix's death hit Arthur Lee hard lurks
everywhere - in his vocal phrasing and spoken asides, in guitarist Craig
Tarwater's high-voltage riffs, in the souped-up bluesy arrangements. In
fact, if imitation is the highest form of flattery, Love Lost could be
interpreted as a Hendrix tribute album par excellence (although, to be
fair, bits of Cream, Mountain, the Jeff Beck Group, and others percolate
throughout). "I Can't Find It", which with a bit more work might have
been the single, echoes "The Wind Cries Mary"; the stuttering strut of
"Midnight Sun" is drenched in Electric Ladyland-isms. And on and on.
These
are fine efforts - vicarious pleasures to be sure - that nonetheless
get under your skin. "Product Of The Times" even gets away from stock
paeans to troubled love affairs for a bit of self-reflective commentary,
a flicker of Lee's old songwriting spark. "Product," riding a gutbucket
riff and some sizzling lead guitar, and everyman anthem "Everybody's
Gotta Live", given a hair-raising Lee vocal, are impassioned, fully
realised gems.
Yet, for all the group's chutzpah, Arthur Lee‘s
indulgences - a tendency to over-sing into a screech, some cringeworthy
misogyny - blunt the impact. Curiously, Columbia assigned no producer
for these sessions, terminating the band's contract without releasing a
note. A clearheaded producer, one capable of adding some discipline,
focus and editing, might well have crafted Dear You into a remarkable
rebirth.
(full version: uncut.co.uk/reviews/love-lost-love-5126/)
01. Love Jumped Through My Window (03:23)
02. I Can't Find It (04:51)
03. He Said She Said (03:41)
04. Product of the Times (04:22)
05. Sad Song (02:56)
06. Everybody's Gotta Live (04:03)
07. Midnight Sun (04:13)
08. Good & Evil I (04:25)
09. He Knows a Lot of Good Women (03:15)
10. Find Somebody (03:59)
11. For a Day (02:09)
12. Good & Evil II (02:58)
13. Looking Glass (02:32)
14. Trippin' & Slippin'/Ezy Ryder (06:58)
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