Twelve Dreams of Dr. Sardonicus

Funky and fun. I liked most of it.

“Love Has Found away” is like an XTC song. And we all remember “Nature’s Way “ because of FM radio. The whole thing works nicely as an album. Part middle of the road rock, part jazz, part psychedelic, part hard rock, but all put together well. Arty and kind of epic. Pretty good.

So I guess the 70s were pretty lame huh

3.6/5

Pre Listen:
Never heard of this group nor album, but based on the year and release date, I'm expecting some zany psychedelic rock. How zany will determine how much I like it, but there's no way an album with such a title will be even remotely serious.

Notable Tracks:
Animal Zoo | Mr. Skin - Tied for my favorite albums on the track. I love the energy these songs have with them, absolute bops. Reminds me of the Kinks at their strongest.
Love Has Found a Way - Least favorite track. I feel like this song embodies the worst stereotypes of this sort of psychedelic rock. In an attempt to sound unique and interesting, it forgot to sound good.
Space Child - Another highlight of the album, it's got that psychedelic spacey sound down. The piano on here is goated.

Post Listen:
There was a lot of interesting things on this album, a lot of worked great, and overall the energy this album has in it is wonderful. That said, a good number of things fell flat here, but overall it was a positive experience.

I noticed the influence of Hendrix, The Kinks, Pink Floyd, and even a bit of the Rolling Stones in here, but only influence alone. Their sound was unique and consistant enough to have their own feeling. The strongest parts of the album were the key three ingredients any good rock album has got to have; their bass, drums, and guitar playing were all great. The additional instruments included in many songs were wonderful too. Where I think the album struggled a bit was the more experimental sounds included; the odd distortion, back tracking, sampled noises, etc. Sometimes they worked fabulously, like on Animal Zoo, other times it just felt out of place and added nothing.

That said, overall the Dreams of Dr. Sardonicus were positive ones. I'd dream with him again, I like his Spirit. 4/5

This was fun!

Vanaf Motorhead was het even terugschakelen. Dus mijn eerste gevoel was: saai. Maar langzaam raakte ik het gewend en werd ik me bewust van de extreme balans van met name de eerste helft. Doordat alles elkaar in evenwicht houdt, moet je moeite doen om de instrumenten en toch bijzondere overgangen op te pakken. Als je die moeite doet, wordt je verrast door een pop-ontstijgend geheel. Al ben ik erg gevoelig voor pakkende uitschieters en mis ik die toch.

Stiekem vind de op het internet gehate Nintendo-family-game-muziek van Space Child dan wel een fijne break.

Na dit nummer, lijken ze bewust wat traditionelere composities neer te zetten. Met When I touch you gelijk als voorbeeld. Er wordt zelfs wat geschreeuwd. Dit zijn niet de beste nummers die we in deze lijst tegenkomen. Maar ook met deze keuze komen ze op albumniveau tot een balans.

*Love the songs with instrumentation the most- but lots of cool prog and psych moments

It's kind of goofy this album in its intense progginess but I love it. It's cool to hear such a clearly American take on the genre. I didn't know David Briggs produced it. He knew how to capture a vibe.

𝘛𝘸𝘦𝘭𝘷𝘦 𝘋𝘳𝘦𝘢𝘮𝘴 𝘰𝘧 𝘋𝘳. 𝘚𝘢𝘳𝘥𝘰𝘯𝘪𝘤𝘶𝘴 sits right on the border between psychedelic rock and early prog, which makes it interesting from the start. The arrangements are colourful, the ideas are ambitious, and the album clearly wants to be more than just another psychedelic rock record of its era.

Still, that curiosity does not quite last for the full runtime. After a while, the songs begin to blur together, and the album feels more repetitive than its variety of sounds would suggest.

There is plenty here to admire, but not quite enough to keep me fully engaged from beginning to end.

Nice switch up from folk to rock in the beginning. It's been a while since I was surprised by an album on the first song. I like how Spirit switch up on different psychedelic styles: rock, folk, jazz, and some groove here and there.

It's already pretty zany but the mix on Spotify lets me appreciate how varied the production is (3.5).

At first, I thought this album might develop in a very interesting way. Overall, it wasn't bad. However, I didn't feel the urge to listen to it again. 3/5

Lätt rockig med psykadeliska inslag.

Familiarity breeds contempt. This list having an over exposure to psychedelic rock and progressive rock really makes it difficult to appreciate these styles. This does feel/sound better than the majority though. It also made me want to relisten since I was passively listening the first time around. That has to be a good sign. The production sounds great. Theres a real clarity in the instruments, the vocals and I liked the use of panning. 4/5.

LA version of the band Chicago

It was hard to decide between a 3 or a 4 for this one. I settled on four as, while there wasn’t an outright banger that stood out to me, there was nothing on here that I didn’t enjoy

I do like this album, think their debut's better. This has a bit more 70s in approach, and I'm a bit bored of 70s classic rock tropes. Maybe its just that this list is so stuffed with early 70s American cheese (Creedence, Fleetwood Mac etc) or English acts churning out disposable pap for the US market (Floyd, Zep, Cream etc) that even the good artists like Spirit seem tame. Still it's not dross like Rumours or Green River and Spirit are a fine band with a great guitarist and they raise themselves above the malaise of the time.

Twelve dreams is a bit rich, and there are 16 songs. Not in the mood for it to be honest.

Not bad but not a huge impact

Kinda cool, kinda forgettabble, but I might just be tired of psych rock. Solid 3