Customer Reviews

Twain Shall Meet

5 star:		(11)
4 star:		(5)
3 star:		(4)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Until you've heard it, you will never know. This was Eric Burdon's answer to the Beatles Sgt Peppers LHCB. This is a master work that will never be repeated in any form or function, contained herein, the greatest compilation of music from the 60's I've ever heard. "In the beginning... Well, you should know by now." We love you, Eric.

this is a great album that just grows and grows on you.
vastly underrated and overlooked. psychedelia at its finest!!

preceded by the kickoff album "Winds Of Change". As with that release, it's best to listen beyond the hit single. In this case, there are two: "Monterey" and the full version of "Sky Pilot". Once you do that, there's "Just the Thought", a meditative number characterized by a Gregorian-style repetition (cathedral reverb and all) of each phrase Burdon sings by the backup singers. The song "No Self Pity" is almost Confucian in its philosophical nature; the choruses ending each verse consist of comparisons like "no matter how strong you are, there is always somebody stronger. And no matter how..." etc., four of them per chorus, no repeats. "We Love You Lil" is a "Hey Jude" style instrumental jam built on the WW II classic "Lili Marlene". As I mention in my "Winds Of Change" review, the blues is by its very nature introspective, but this underrated cycle of albums takes that a step beyond.

This has always rated as one of my all time faves. Each time I listen to this I gain a new respect for the talent of this man and his band. The lyrics of "No Self Pity" are some of the most powerful he ever sang,relevant to this day.

With "Monterey", "Closer To The Truth" and "Sky Pilot" on this CD, it would have to be good and it is. The surprise is that the rest of the CD is no disappointment, each track refreshingly different from the last. No mamby pamby, girlie mush here, just a musical comment that captures and preserves a slice of history.

When this album came out (It had a different cover; a line drawing of Eric in a "through the looking glass" style) I wondered if it would be any good. I took a chance and bought it. I was not disappointed. Every cut was good, but some were GREAT. Everyone I know loves Sky Pilot, and Monterey was an instant hit, but the mood evoked by We Love You Lil and Orange and Red Beams is amazing. Don't get me wrong, The Animals did a slew of excellent songs over the years but I am particularly fond of this album. Maybe because of the era in which it was recorded and released to its fans. In a time of great confusion in our lives, or maybe it was something deeper than even that. No matter, it was great and I am grateful for it. If you want to hear Burdon in a not-so-mainstream vein and still enjoy his music, buy this album. You won't be disappointed.

We should all save the ANIMALS albums from extinction. I've had one of those "EXPERIENCES", we sometimes have, while listening to freak music. Eric Burton has always been recognised as on of the leading blues voices of the British invasion, and his early hits with the (British version) of the ANIMALS are in every 60s GREATEST HITS package in the world. SO, what happened after the lysergic hit his head? I only knew of his being "experienced" from The Animals' amazing live performance of the Stone's "PAINT IT, BLACK" during the 1967 Monterrey Pop Festival. And of course, the song MONTERREY, which recaps Eric's recollections of the event, is the opening number on this album. Think of MONTERREY as the psychedelic flip side to the song WOODSTOCK. After "the bullet" plays, you are drawn into the album, into one of the most flipped out, acid drenched, sonically frightening series of songs recorded during 1968. The songs merge, sitars dominate with harpsicords and string parts on the more "structured songs". In fact, if you mash together Donovan's SUNSHINE SUPERMAN, with the Animal's rhythym section , you arrive at a template used on many of the songs, including JUST THE THOUGHT. Its a ballad that could have sat on King Crimson's first album alongside MOONCHILD. But only in the experimentation achieved on this album, can you REALLY find the scope and depth Eric wanted to portray. JUST THE THOUGHT ends abruptly, as someone starts rewinding, and fumbling with a home reel to reel recorder. Then, a blury, quick demo begins of the next song. CLOSER TO THE TRUTH's nasty sounding DEMO of the song starts, but professional studio vocals are overdubbed, after a few lines of music. After a verse of demo with vocals, the bass and drums kick in, and you 're thrown into a rollercoaster ride of the mind. Eric's visionary lyrics tell us that "Somewhere someone is closer to the truth than you are". The lyrics build on the meaning of who has truth, as the song speeds up, guitar solos flip out, and and the band goes OUT THERE. Way out. FAR out. THEN, when Burdon figures you "got the message", we travel full circle, back to the rough home demo opening. THEN, the recorder is clicked off, THUD. And what happens? You are ejected into the next song, which continues the lyrical theme. This time, YANG to the YIN, the song says YOU are further than someone else. (NO SELF PITY). Utilizing a VERY heavy sitar - harpsecord sound, Eric relates his drug visions. (OK, its a bit drippy hearing someone sing "Have you seen a butterfly's wings, or a blackbird sing?" BUT, it's still got attitude.) After a long sitar solo, Eric throws you into a mind blowing wonderland of ORANGE AND RED BEAMS. This song opens with a nice backing track, string sections, while Eric sings about these Orange and Red Beams, and the birth of a baby. BUT HIS VOCALS HERE, are doubletracked using a reverse delay effect. As a piccalo trumpet and flute colors the song, several overdubs of Eric chant-singing ORANGE ANE RED BEAMS approach the ETERNAL NOW, while your mind floats away in a sea of orange and red voices. How far out can you go? Well, Eric Burdon tried to find out.

ITs a total trip. For those of you who love psychedelic music, THE TWAIN SHALL MEET is one of the best from the Genre. The rest of the album, might be more familier due to another hit single. SKY PILOT is almost 8 minutes long, including a fighter plane battle in the middle of the song. (no doubt a lot of vietnam vets had PTS flashbacks during this song, from overdubbed guitars soloing while the plane takes off, gets shot down, etc.) WE LOVE YOU LIL connects to the end of SKY PILOT. After starting with just Eric whistling, an acoustic folk song begins. After a little bit, the song turns HEAVY, with guns and warfare in the backround, and the tolling of the death bell. At nearly 12 minutes long, WE LOVE YOU LIL is a sonic recap of the whole album, a total mash up of everything bizarre that came before it. When this extended flip out ends, you're presented with a BAGPIPE SONG for a minute or so. Its introduces the penultimate freak out song, "WE"RE ALL ONE". As a closer to an album that starts with the flower power of MONTEREY, then leads you thru spirituality and visionary beauty into warfare and fighter jets, we are left with a message of peace, and unity. WE ARE ALL ONE. Eric revs up the tempo at the end, horns and sitars fight for sonic dominance, until strings softly win out, and set you back down SOFTLY to earth, only to lift off again into one last flashback of sitar acid madness. As the last rev up turns to a flood of flutes gracing a beautiful sonic landscape, as Eric dosed addled mind reminds us that "Now you should know by now". (and if that makes sense, then youre dosed too.) AND THEN ITS OVER. An album that's a HEAVY DUTY MIND FREAK!

And what more can you say than that? If you have music by Donovan, Traffic, Love, Pink Floyd, Capt. Beefheart, or other classics from 1967-68, you know what you 're getting into. But I assure you, this is a psychedelic masterpiece, and a wierd one at that. No doubt Eric Burdon's didactic, heavy confrontational stance against what he considered the "straight world", drives the wierd, hippy daydream vibe on the album. But isnt that why we listen to psychedelic music? No, its not as good as the Beatles or Stones best work, but its still THE ANIMALS, and THEY ARE DOSED to their eyelids on...something. Like the previous Animals album (WINDS OF CHANGE), I'm happy I discovered this album, and frustrated that it took me so long to uncover this forgotten treasure of the Hippy era. Recommended to all who fly the freak flag.

Eric Burdon has a voice that's full of longing, for what might have been and what could still be if people didn't act so much like people act. It can make you sad or it can motivate you to be part of the solution instead of part of the problem.

Eric Burdon and the Animals were one of the most successful psychedelic groups of 1960s, having four top forty psychedelic hits in the USA during a period of about a year, a success that is only topped by Donovan and the Beatles. Two of those Animals hits are on this album: "Monterey and Sky Pilot". These singles are the best material on Twain Shall Meet, and many collectors may wish to buy them separately. However, I bought this album for one of the deep cuts, "Orange and Red Beams", which is sometimes mentioned as a good example of late psychedelia, a song that has haunted me since I first heard it in 1968. To my ear it has the distinction of sounding very much like the awe mixed with sadness that accompanies certain visionary states of mind. The song doesn't make a whole lot of sense, but it does capture a mood. Other cuts of the album on the album range from fairly good to terribly pretentious. Some of it may sound dated; I liked the album better as a whole back in the day than I do now. But I'm glad to be reunited with "Orange and Red Beams", and have added it and "Monterey" to my Psychedelic Masterworks collection.

Being an Eric Burdon freak, I certainly do like this CD. The best part is it contains one of the all time greatest singles Sky Pilot in the best mix and mastering I've heard so far. However, there a few things one wishes had been done differently. 2 songs feature one of the other band memebers on vocals. Eric would have been better, but that's history and the tunes are still quite enjoyable. Seems to me to be an answer to Axis:Bold where Noel sings a couple. The tunes No Self Pity and We Are One are not exactly catchy tunes, but I would image would have been great on a psychedelic light drenched stage. The mono single of Sky Point is great. That tune is a totally differnt experience in mono. I think Eric is one of the few artists who I would call a mystical visionary.