Album review: IRON BUTTERFLY – In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida (reissue)

IRON BUTTERFLY - In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida (reissue)

Salvo [Release date 27.10.14]

In terms of psychedelic rock heavyweights of the late-1960s, they don’t come much heavier than Iron Butterfly. Sometimes even credited for inventing the heavy metal idiom - as epitomised by the 17 minute title track. The band’s second album actually evokes the psychedelic pop/rock prevalent at the time with bands like Strawberry Alarm Clock, The Electric Prunes, Blue Cheer and Steppenwolf.

The opener ‘Most Anything You Want’ has a very Doors-like keyboard motif whilst songs like ‘Flowers And Beads’ and The Turtles-like ‘Are You Happy’ are perfect summer pop a year after the “summer of love”.

The extended title track was originally recorded so that the band could check sound levels: luckily the tape was running. The song is a seminal jam track with Doug Ingle’s keys and Eric Brann’s fuzzed guitar jostling for position above Lee Dorman (bass) and Ron Bushy’s drums. Bushy’s long drum solo may have seemed self-indulgent, even for 1968, and was showcased on the French B-side “live edit” included here as a bonus track.

Also included here as a bonus is the instrumental ‘Iron Butterfly Theme’ (originally a single off the band’s debut ‘Heavy’) and ‘Soul Experience’, a single from the follow-up album ‘Ball’ along with the single edit of the title track.

With many modern bands looking back to Led Zeppelin, and further, this reissue may be timely although it was also available as a deluxe edition in 1996 when expanded with the full-length live version of ‘In-A-Gadda Da-Vida’. In addition to the bonus tracks, this new edition also has a useful essay wrapped in a smart triptych digi-pak.

Iron Butterfly never re-captured this album’s phenomenal success (it was the first to receive platinum status for sales of over 1m copies ) and the classic line-up split after ‘Ball’, the band soldiering on until 1971. ***1/2

Review by David Randall

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