Dragonfly - Dragonfly (1968 US Psych/Garage)

A favorite among some collectors of rare late-'60s /early-'70s psychedelic albums, Dragonfly's self-titled LP is a not-so-finely balanced mixture of the sort of overwrought bluesy hard rock by bands of the period like Iron Butterfly with the poppier, more power chord-driven hard rock of the late-'60s Who. While it might be predictable for a critic to prefer the Who influences to the more generic psychedelic hard rock ones, Dragonfly are at their best when they favor the former over the latter. When they get into more standard blustery macho rock à la "Blue Monday" (not the Fats Domino classic) or "Hoochie Coochie Man," they're pretty dispensable. Yet "Portrait of Youth" has some powerhouse drumming that seems to make it pretty unlikely the percussionist hadn't avidly studied Keith Moon, and passages nodding to foppish late-'60s British pop-psychedelia are mixed into the package, sometimes incongruously so. Furious distorted guitar and some psychedelic trickery are in relative abundance, yet not at the expense of some fairly Who-ish harmonies and airier sensibilities. But there aren't any really outstanding songs here, and the mix of approaches can be cluttered and confused.

AMG Review by Richie Unterberger

Funkadelic - Free Your Mind And Your Ass Will Follow (Great Psychedelic Soul from 1970)

It's one of the best titles in modern musical history, for song and for album, and as a call to arms mentally and physically the promise of funk was never so perfectly stated. If it were just a title then there'd be little more to say, but happily, Free Your Mind lives up to it throughout as another example of Funkadelic getting busy and taking everyone with it. The title track itself kicks things off with rumbling industrial noises and space alien sound effects, before a call-and-response chant between deep and chirpy voices brings the concept to full life.

As the response voices say, "The kingdom of heaven is within!" The low and dirty groove rumbles along for ten minutes of dark fun, with Bernie Worrell turning in a great keyboard solo toward the end ó listening to it, one gets the feeling that if Can were this naturally funky, they'd end up sounding like this. From there the band makes its way through a total of six songs, ranging from the good to astoundingly great. "Funky Dollar Bill" is the other standout track from the proceedings, with a great, throw-it-down chorus and rhythm and a sharp, cutting lyric that's as good to think about as it is to sing out loud.

The closing "Eulogy and Light," meanwhile, predates Prince with its backward masking and somewhat altered version of the Lord's Prayer and Psalm 23. At other points, even if the song is a little more straightforward, there's something worthwhile about it, like the random stereo panning and Eddie Hazel's insane guitar soloing on "I Wanna Know If It's Good for You," with more zoned and stoned keyboard work from Worrell to top things off. The amount of drugs going down for these sessions in particular must have been notable, but the end results make it worthy.

01. Free Your Mind And Your Ass Will Follow
02. Friday Night, August 14th
03. Funky Dollar Bill Listen
04. I Wanna Know If It's Good To You?
05. Some More
06. Eulogy And Light

Post by CGR