Artist: The Jimi Hendrix Experience
Album: Axis: Bold As Love
Year: 1967
Round 2 of Jimi Hendrix is Axis: Bold As Love. I admired Hendrix' debut album Are You Experienced?, but did not love it. I found it fairly revolutionary in the approach to the guitar, and some of the songs were pretty cool, but I didn't feel it was an album that would particularly stick with me.
Axis: Bold As Love is definitely an album that will stick with me. This one is head and shoulders above the debut album. The songs are simply better, the production is better, and the performances are more assured. This one is a fantastic album.
Like the debut, there's a mix of styles present here. There's soul, rock, experimental cuts like the opener "EXP," and some slower, more contemplative songs. What I admire most in this album is that even though there's a variation in styles, the album flows pretty seamlessly from track to track. The debut felt kind of haphazardly sequenced to me, but this one makes up for it.
Tracks of particular worthiness in my opinion are the grungy "Spanish Castle Magic," which for some reason feels like a precursor to Soundgarden to me, the subdued, bluesy "Little Wing," and the arpeggiated "One Rainy Wish." "She's So Fine" is another notable tune in the sense that it's written and sung by Hendrix' bassist Noel Redding. It's one of the poppier tracks here and is a surprising standout. Really, the entire album comes together so nicely that it's hard to pick out great tracks...this one's full of them.
A legendary performer at the top of his game? Yup...this one is a must-listen.
Rating: Indispensable
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