Get Your Wings
Artist: Aerosmith
Community Score: 7.75

Due to the commercial underachievement of Aerosmith's 1973 self-titled debut, the young band was nearly dropped by its record label. But a rigorous touring schedule helped strengthen their songwriting and tightened their playing even further, so after Columbia wisely decided to back the band again, the classic Get Your Wings was released. It... Read More

You Are the Music..We're Just the Band
Artist: Trapeze

Though they were best known for a kind of muscular funk rock, the band Trapeze always had a jazzy element, and on You Are the Music, We're Just the Band it is the softer tunes that stand out. This isn't to say that there aren't some good rockers here, since the title tune and "Keepin' Time" are energetic and enjoyable. However it is on "Coast to... Read More

The Best of Mountain
Artist: Mountain
Community Score: 9.00

Mountain's meteoric ride through the early '70s was as memorable as it was brief -- so much so that this excellent greatest-hits set was released less than four years after the band had inaugurated their career at Woodstock. In retrospect, its easy to understand why the strange chemistry (pun intended) struck between boogie-loving,... Read More

Energized
Artist: Foghat
Community Score: 8.50

The third album proved to be the charm for Foghat. On Energized, their fusion of blues song structures and heavy metal energy comes into sharp focus. The group storms out of the gate with the opening track, "Honey Hush"; this inspired reworking of a blues classic moves like a locomotive about to run off the rails and dazzles the listener with a... Read More

Captain Beyond
Artist: Captain Beyond

Captain Beyond is a one-of-a-kind progressive album with rock, heavy metal, and jazz influences with a "space rock" lyrical bend. Formed by former members of Deep Purple (Rod Evans, vocals), Iron Butterfly (Rhino, lead guitar, and Lee Dorman, bass), and Johnny Winter (Bobby Caldwell, drums) Captain Beyond is an album that flows from riff to... Read More

Why Dontcha
Artist: West, Bruce & Laing
Community Score: 5.00

Three years after Blind Faith, and two years after the zoo that was Ginger Baker's Air Force -- Denny Laine essentially replacing Eric Clapton in Blind Faith with six more musicians added for good measure -- Jack Bruce mixes the blues of Cream with the hard rock of Mountain while the label gave them maybe a third of the Blind Faith hype. The... Read More

Climbing!
Artist: Mountain
Community Score: 10.00

Mountain was the combined forces of Leslie West, a gigantic guitarist/vocalist who had played with New York garage-psych rockers The Vagrants, and Felix Pappalardi. Pappalardi had a slightly more impressive track record, coming from the modern East Coast folk-rock movement (The Youngbloods), before he applied his production skills to Cream.... Read More

Mott
Artist: Mott the Hoople
Community Score: 7.25

All the Young Dudes actually brought Mott the Hoople success, but you wouldn't know that from its sequel, Mott. Ian Hunter's songs are a set of road tales fraught with exhaustion, disillusionment, and dashed dreams, all told with a wry sense of humor so evident on Mott's earlier work. So, this is no ordinary road album, where a band whines about... Read More

Hendrix in the West - 1972
Artist: Jimi Hendrix

Hendrix in the West is a collection of extremely good live Hendrix performances between 1968-1970. Three different concerts are sampled on this 1972 Polydor/Reprise release, one of the few official live Hendrix releases following his death. Standouts include "Red House" and "Voodoo Chile" from the San Diego Sports Arena, a great rendition of... Read More

The Cry of Love
Artist: Jimi Hendrix
Community Score: 10.00

This was the first of the posthumous releases in the Jimi Hendrix catalog and probably the best as it collected most of the studio tracks that were either completed or very near completion before Hendrix died. Some of these tunes, like "Angel" and "Ezy Rider," have become well-known pieces in the Hendrix canon, but they sit alongside... Read More

Rock & Roll Outlaws
Artist: Foghat
Community Score: 9.00

After establishing a new level of credibility on record with 1974's Energized, Foghat cranked out another album of boogie rock before the year ended. The result, Rock and Roll Outlaws, is not as consistently inspired as its predecessor but remains a worthwhile listen for the group's fans. This time out, the group settles for a more... Read More

Crazy Horse
Artist: Crazy Horse

Since Crazy Horse first came to public attention as the backing band for Neil Young in concert and on his albums Everybody Knows This Is Nowhere and After the Gold Rush, it makes sense to expect that the band on its own would play something similar to the hard guitar rock and country-rock heard on those albums, albeit without Young's... Read More