So your lead singer has either had a heart attack or gone into perpetual Enquierer-esque hiding to escape being famous or some other pretentious bullshit. What does a band do when you've arguably just released your crowning comeback album 6 months earlier? You take the trademark music you've already laid down and throw some Morrison-esque vocals on it. Which brings us to Other Voices, one of the two post-Jim albums the Doors would release, most assuredly as contractual obligations to Elektra. The fact that by the 70's the band was pretty much creating the music and letting Morrison just do his thing when he showed up at the studio so the guys were almost there. That being said, how is it? Actually pretty solid. The music is great, a depressing window into what could have been for their seventh album had the band been whole. Acknowledging the point that some of the Doors' biggest hits weren't written by Morrison ("Light My Fire", "Touch Me", "Love Me Two Times", etc.) all three remaining band members summoned their lyrical skills and gave a best shot trying to channel their deceased lead singer's arcane style to complete the record. So, not surprisingly, if the album has a problem. it's the fact that Krieger and Manzarek aren't great vocalists. It works (kinda) with the harmonizing on the bluesy "Variety Is The Spice Of Life" but on some of the other songs Manzarek just sounds like a kareoke's Mick Jagger or Roger Daltrey (or pretty much any other popular 60's-era lead singer other than Morrison). Not that that's terrible, it's just not the Doors. Musically it's amazing, lyrically it works somewhat, the guys channel the vibe Morrison generally went for - it's just different "voices" and hence the album title I guess. But what the fuck, I really like this shit (especially the crazy end to "Hang On To Your Life" which is definitely shades of their live versions of "Not To Touch This Earth") and it's a somewhat melancholic window into the musical talents and potential future of a band who ended way too soon. Interestingly, the members of the band assured Elektra they never had the record's master tracks after the initial LP release... this album (and its follow up, 1972's Full Circle) never saw life on CD until 2006.
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