The Doors - Other Voices

Here's a really strange album. Not strange in itself, but strange because it's impossible to contextualize.

Admit it, The Doors without Jim Morrison doesn't exist. You don't have to feel bad for thinking that, because it's true. The problem is that most of the tracks were just waiting for Morrison to come back from Paris and participate. It's a Doors album, but it's not. Some bands can keep going, some bands have to rebrand themselves. They didn't try to replace him, but Ray and Robby aren't Jim and on more than a couple tracks they're clearly trying to be.

So, while you can pretend to ignore it, the ghost of Jim Morrison haunts this record because they wrote it for him to sing.

They also made it sound too nice. In my earlier review i mentioned that their "evolution" was as much a product of recording equipment as anything, and this one goes too far. There aren't any "bathroom" vocals, there's practically no reverb to speak of, and there are no edges or corners on anything; if the sound of an album could be childproofed, this is it.

If you can get over the feeling that half the tracks would have been scrapped if Morrison had survived to veto them, it's okay. It's not great. There are cheesy moments. Most critics try too hard to pretend their individual personalities shine brighter, but all i hear is solo album material filling the space where a drunk and deranged Oedipal complex should be. I'm not getting paid, why should i try to make it out to be something it's not. It's not a Doors album, it's 3/4 of the Doors playing new songs. They aren't terrible, but neither is turkey bacon; i can taste the difference, so don't try to spin me around.

I argued when people said Razorblade Suitcase sounded like tracks for the Nirvana album that would never be, and here's my counterargument. If this was the first thing you heard by the Doors you could be into it, but not me. Sorry.

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