-- Steppenwolf - Steppenwolf the Second | (Audio CD) MSRP $ 9.98 Amazon Price $ 9.98 Savings $ 0.00 | |  Release Date: 25 October, 1990, Mca
TRACK LISTING - Faster Than The Speed Of Life
- Tighten Up Your Wig
- None Of Your Doing
- Spiritual Fantasy
- Don`t Step On The Grass, Sam
- 28
- Magic Carpet Ride
- Disappointment Number (Unknown)
- Lost And Found By Trial And Error
- Hodge, Podge, Strained Through A Leslie
- Resurrection
- Reflections
Usually ships in 24 hours | | | Steppenwolf the Second | | I purchased this album in the early sixties and loved it then, but I love this CD even more. Thanks. | | | | Faster Than Speed | Superior to the first Steppenwolf album in many ways, and including a song that tops even `Born To Be Wild` itself, `Magic Carpet Ride`, is as essential as the group`s first album, even to the casual rock fan.
It opens with `Faster Than The Speed Of Life`, a perfect blend of Steppenwolfish hard rock & Airplanesque psychedelic rock (like `She Has Funny Cars`).
`Tighten Up Your Wing` is an upbeat, bluesy track, that bounces well along, before being replaced with `None Of Your Doing`, a Steppenwolf-classic, that shifts gear between verse & chorus.
`Spiritual Fantasy` is one of the strangest creations on the album, strangely touching, though appaling at first. But given a second chance, it comes across as one of the best tracks on the album.
The marihuana-anthem `Don`t Step On The Grass, Sam` is pure heavy Steppenwolf, a timeless classic, that crunches slowly, but steadily along.
`28` is a great rock song with just a hint of psychedelia in the melody. A neat little rocker that is followed by the ultimate psychedelic dance track.
`Magic Carpet Ride` is simply Steppenwolf`s best song ever, a fantastic blend of rhytm, melody & vision, that is worth the price of all Steppenwolf`s classic albums on its own. It was also the only of their singles to almost replicate `Born To Be Wild`s US #2 placing, when it shot to #3 on the US chart.
`Disappointment Number` is almost that, but then not again. It is an odd ode to/parody of old blues, complete with bird sounds in the background, as if it`s an old blues singer sitting out in the open.
`Lost And Found By Trial And Error` has a great tune, and rocks away well, as does `Hodge, Podge, Strained Through A Leslie` and `Resurrection`. Both employ the classic Steppenwolf sound in a great rocking way, to become, if not classics, then at least Steppenwolf-standards.
The album closes with `Reflections` a weird song, that seems like somebody trying to be visionary, before you realize that that is just what he is. Just in a very peculiar way.
The album has some, if not weak, then not too powerful spots, but generally it is a more than worthy follow-up to the first Steppenwolf album, with a great blend of the band`s traditional hard rock and a form of psychedelia that suits them perfectly. Even the least interesting tracks rock nicely, & no-one should have anything to complain about here... | | | | Work in progress! | Seen under the most objective perspective, this was a transient album. With this premise in the analysis, this second album finds a band that still has not developed a personal style. Faster than the speed of life, the opening track is a prelude, a thundering theme that works out as stimulating vehicle to put us in mood. Don` ts step on the grass, Sam is a Country song with visible influence of the blues. Obviously the resonant voice of John Kay was an additional instrument in the band.
Ironically, Magic carpet ride has been the most commercial piece for the great audiences: it possesses originality and highly expressive character; the organ is the basic support instrument and that was by itself a very remarkable idea. I must insist in an aspect many times forgotten: in those ages you had to engage the exigent auduiences through the rhthym: The Video Clip was an inexistent term, and to get the total acknowldedge of so many people with such golden bands in action for that moment, was a
task nothing easy to reach.
Somehow the excessive popularity gotten by the band with this single, obligated them to rethink their original target and purpose: Magic Carpet ride was in the opposite side of the street respect to Born to be wild their everlasting hymn.
If you are a hard fan of Steppenwolf or simply a minutely searcher or collector of the greatest bands of the bands, this album is fundamental for you, because it`s an important piece in the wide gamut of musical forms that came derivating from pioneer bands such as Vanilla Fudge, Deep Purple or the Doors for instance, both bands were supported by the organ too, so it is easy to foolow the traces of the first experiences with the Moog Synthetizer, that would reach a sum peak with Yes and Emerson Lake and Palmer.
Go for this record because even Steppenwolf has not acquired their definitive musical personality, you can realize some changes are going on, and so make the link with Monster (their most solid and mature album), just before to initiate their gradual decay with later albums.
This is an album that delineates his raising profile, I mean the epic journey.
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-- zzzz
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