Master's gone away, indeed - on July 3, 1971, Jim Morrison was found dead while staying in Paris. He was yet another life lost too soon, dying at the age of 27. With The Doors' primary songwriter, vocalist, frontman, and arguably main sales appeal literally expired, you'd think that's the end of the story - six damn-good rock albums that cement The Doors as rock legends. Well, that might as well be the end, because any attempt to continue after Jim's death was about as dead on arrival as Jim himself. I'm not gonna sit here and say that Other Voices is necessarily a bad album, but under the Doors lineage it most certainly is. So much of the character that made the group appealing is lost with Jim, and in its place you have a blues group that can play their instruments pretty well, but not a whole lot more. These post-Morrison albums are largely forgotten, and I think it's safe to say that it's for a reason.
Across Other Voices, we certainly get other voices - Robbie Krieger has taken up primary songwriting duties - not a bad choice, considering he did bring us "Love Her Madly" and "Touch Me." Keyboardist Ray Manzarek also contributes a few pieces, notably the powerhouse opening track "In the Eye of the Sun," which probably comes the closest to recapturing the magic. Even with a competent lyricist at the helm, this doesn't quite steer The Doors back on track - ignoring the fact that it's the same fuck that wrote "I'm Horny, I'm Stoned," Krieger is no Morrison when it comes to writing - his approach is far more straightforward, bluesy, and without any of the mystical poetry or weirdness that Morrison had. So naturally, when we've gone from lizard king to runnin' blues, it's a bit of a downgrade. You could bring up the fact that all of these guys are still great musicians, and while that is true, some of the life feels absent here - it all sounds great, but I'd say it sounds like The Doors in the way that Greta Van Fleet sounds like Led Zeppelin.
When it comes to singing, you have big shoes to fill - Jim Morrison is one of the best rock singers of all time. So, how do they manage? Ray Manzarek is actually a very competent vocalist, and his gruff delivery, while sometimes sounding too much like he's trying to be Jim, often carries the rocking numbers like the opening track, the awesome "Tightrope Ride," and the solid closing track "Hang On to Your Life." It's probably good that Manzarek sings for most of this record, because the two songs that Krieger sings are shockingly bad - it's compounding bad, too. Both "Variety Is the Spice of Life" and "I'm Horny, I'm Stoned" are layers of awful, from Krieger's nasal voice to the weak instrumentation to the pitiful lyrics ("I'm lonely, I'm ugly, I'm horny, I'm cold." Really?). Moments like this make me really appreciate Waiting for the Sun a whole lot more - yeah, it may be my least favorite Doors album, but it didn't have shit like this! Luckily, nothing on this album is quite as bad as those moments, but most of the other songs suffer from Wild Life syndrome - they overstay their visit just a bit, albeit they're far more interesting and explorative than most things on Wild Life. Much of this album bleeds together, too - I couldn't tell ya how "Ships w/ Sails" goes, and if I tried to, I'd probably end up humming the melody to "Wandering Musician" by mistake - that is if I remember how that sounds, either.
Post-Morrison Doors might as well be seen as either a completely different band or a tribute group. While Other Voices has the members and the blues and the rock, it can only dream of matching even the lower moments of The Doors' greatness. Take as it is, Other Voices is a fine, if not all-that special, blues rock album, but with the context of what The Doors was it's nothing short of a complete miss of the mark and an assuredly lackluster experience. I'm not even sure The Doors themselves knew what they were doing here - look at how lost Ray and Robbie look on the front. Funny enough, Ray's facial expression was the same one I had throughout this entire album.
RATING: ✯✯✯✯✯✯✯✯✯✯
Listen to Other Voices.
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