Twelve Dreams of Dr. Sardonicus

I really enjoyed it!

Never heard of them before. Definitely a mixed bag but has some cool elements.

A little bit folky, a little bit psychedelic, a whole lot of good music.

There are some musically interesting things happening here, but I just can't get past the cheese.

Good album.

My initial reaction was this is great, then I started to nitpick some of the tracks... I told myself to chill out and enjoy the ride, so yeah, an optimistic 5 stars!

Bonkers but interesting.

It was alright, definitely listenable

2.33

3.5

The variety on here was good, I liked when they rocked out a bit more than the proggy stuff on the a side but lots to like here

Started out pretty well but tapered off by the end. Not something I’d revisit but definitely an interesting listen.

Pretty fun.

There’s a chaotic amount of ingredients in this pot. Spirit never sit still. I don’t know if there’s one flavour I like enough to get me into the rest, but it’s interesting that it can fluctuate from (aptly) spiritual sounding music which is at one with nature and something a lot sillier and funkier.

Artistically very good and certainly not unlistenable like a lot of the albums in this genre ….. but just feels like its missing something to push it beyond middle of the pack.
By the end it was just a bit boring

This was a weird one. I got to the end, decided I had no idea what I thought about it, and listened to it again the next morning.

I enjoyed Animal Zoo although was a bit puzzled by the lyric "Oh no, something went wrong
Well, you’re much too fat and a little too long" so I had a look at Genius to see if anyone had an explanation:

"Expresses Spirit’s belief that humans had become an aberration of nature, and built up civilization to the point where they were out of touch from the natural world."

Yep, I wouldn't have got that in a million years.

I liked Mr Skin too - organ, brass and the funky bass is a combo that I generally find hard to resist.

As a whole, I think I've settled on liking it. I would like a 2.5, but....

3/5

Fine, but also kind of unexceptionable late 60s early 70s rock.

Artsy, psychodelic, a little tiring after a while

The Good: We get Spirit!
The Bad: It did not include alcohol…
The Ugly: Trying to explain to our shrink all about the 12 dreams of Dr. Sardonicus without the shrink writing us up for being nutcases…

As hard as I try, I do not recall having listened to any Spirit albums before in life, and potentially singles neither. However, I do recall having heard about the band, or even read about them… all very odd, and very much in line with having 12 dreams.

What is interesting is that I listened to the album a couple of times in my office, with great speakers, and once in the car as background filler due to the co-passengers not being open for a sonic journey.
They are totally different…. In my office the album comes over as much heavier, while in the car, at times, I was reminded of Jethro Tull, which really has little to do with Spirit, except that they both are labelled as prog rock…

For this album, knowing that I will want to be reminded about it in the future, and give it at least 1 more spin, I will grant the 4* as the experience was, surprisingly, positive.

Loved the first half, liked the second - decent flow, nice to have prog elements that are in a tightly written shorter song