Future Blues
Artist: Canned Heat

The final Canned Heat album to feature co-founder Alan Wilson, Future Blues was also one of their best, surprisingly restrained as a studio creation by the band, the whole thing clocking in at under 36 minutes, as long as some single jams on their live discs. It was also one of their most stylistically diverse efforts. Most of what's here is... 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

Live at the Monterey International Pop Festival - SPLIT
Artist: Jimi Hendrix

Contrary to the title listed here, this album is actually the classic Monterey festival recording featuring one side of Otis Redding and one side of Jimi Hendrix. Rhino has recently issued a wonderful boxed set covering the entire event, which is certainly worth having as well, but this was the album that made stars out of both Hendrix and... Read More

Heads Hands & Feet
Artist: Heads Hands & Feet
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

Tres Hombres
Artist: ZZ Top
Community Score: 9.57

Tres Hombres is the record that brought ZZ Top their first Top Ten record, making them stars in the process. It couldn't have happened to a better record. ZZ Top finally got their low-down, cheerfully sleazy blooze-n-boogie right on this, their third album. As their sound gelled, producer Bill Ham discovered how to record the trio so simply that... Read More

Led Zeppelin III
Artist: Led Zeppelin
Community Score: 8.20

On their first two albums, Led Zeppelin unleashed a relentless barrage of heavy blues and rockabilly riffs, but Led Zeppelin III provided the band with the necessary room to grow musically. While there are still a handful of metallic rockers, III is built on a folky, acoustic foundation that gives the music extra depth. And even the rockers... 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

Grand Funk
Artist: Grand Funk Railroad
Community Score: 8.33

Grand Funk Railroad's 1970 somewhat eponymous album, their second for Capitol, is characteristic of the classic rock radio sound that would permeate the airwaves of the late 20th century. Grand Funk Railroad was a seminal force in giving the friendlier side of the heavy-rock sound its charm and making it stick. Built on fuzzed-out blues riffs,... 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

Are You Ready
Artist: Pacific Gas & Electric
Community Score: 6.50