csberry | 349 - The Yardbirds - Roger the Engineer

Let's just call it a quirk of the calculations that this album was just a few spots away from their compilation, Having a Rave Up. On that album, the songs were varied but the second half's use of Clapton-era live tracks added a disjointedness to the collection. With this album, we get a good variety of bluesy rock to rocking psychedelia. While the album seems more cohesive, that shouldn't be confused with stating the album is consistent. Some of the tracks are really amazing in their use of guitar fuzz, feedback, and noise. Other tracks are slick blues-rock songs or Moody Blues-esque songs minus the orchestration. But there are also several pedestrian songs that sound like the band just ran out of good material and cobbled something together to fill out the album. The band does deserve kudos for this being their first album of all original material, so that may help to excuse or explain the uneven quality of the songs.

It is uncanny how "Happenings Ten Years Time Ago" sounds like a Led Zeppelin song where Robert Plant was replaced by a lackluster pop singer. "Jeff's Boogie" would probably put a fan of Chet Atkins' or Brian Setzer's jazzy style of rockabilly into absolute orgasmic fits, but didn't do much for me. And I wish Van Halen had done a cover of "Psycho Daisies" and its Chuck Berry-like praise of various places in America.

Songs I knew I liked: None

Songs I didn't know but now like: "Over Under Sideways Down," "Hot House of Omagarashid," "What Do You Want," and "Happenings Ten Years Time Ago"

Songs I can go the rest of my life without hearing again: "I Can't Make Your Way" and "Farewell" stand out, but there were several other tracks that were too boring for me to particularly note them on my post-it of songs I loved and loathed.