Album Reviews

The Yardbirds original "Shapes of Things" took the protest song—a surprising departure from the group's blues-based output— as a smartly rendered military march with mild middle eastern undertones. Jeff Beck played on the original but here for his first solo outing he led with a slinky, heavily syncopated version that presaged by a few years Led Zep's heaviest of metal. The song's conclusion, a rhythmic meltdown to a complete stop was something altogether new to rock fans. Needless to say, back in 1968 buyers of this record had minds blown, in part thanks to the great Ken Scott's impeccable engineering skills and of course by much of the world's first exposure to Rod Stewart.

The lineup of Beck, Stewart, Mick Waller on drums, Ron Wood on bass plus guests Nicky Hopkins on keyboards, John Paul Jones on Hammond organ and Keith Moon ("You Know Who") produced a memorable sound that has lost nothing over the years. The story goes that "Beck's Bolero" produced by Jimmy Page and the album's first recorded track back in 1966, also featuring Jones on bass and of course Moon, led the Who drummer, after someone suggested the participants should form a group, to quip "That would go over like a lead balloon".

The eclectic song selection—from Jerome Kern's "Ol' Man River" (on which Stewart gives a "now listen" shout out to his idol Sam Cooke) to a drenched in reverb "Greensleeves" to "Morning Dew"— Bonnie Dobson's post nuclear war imagining so well covered by Tim Rose (alluded to in Beck's annotation)— adds luster to the package and demonstrates Beck's wide-ranging musical interests. Stewart's blues originals like "Let Me Love You" show a well-honed blues affinity. The two heavily reworked Willie Dixon covers "You Shook Me" and "I Ain't Superstitious" are also standouts. There's not a less than great track on the album.

It's no wonder Mobile Fidelity's double 45 RPM vinyl edition limited to 5000 copies quickly sold out and the SACD is temporarily out of stock but not out of print. I compared the Mo-Fi double 45 to an original U.K. pressing (Columbia SCX 6293), to an original 1A yellow label American Epic (BN 26413) and to a gatefolded Japanese reissue (EMS-80634) with "bonus" inner gatefold photographs (the shape of reissues to come?).

The original U.K. has an organic "wholeness" that satisfies and it doesn't suffer from severe bass roll off or dynamic compression. The American original is EQ'd bright but not too bright and it's also a fun listen. The Japanese version is of course super-quiet and has impeccable bass clarity and overall organization but it's somewhat on the sterile side (though still good!) and the Mo-Fi knocks it out of the park by not going all heavy handed with the EQ, which is slightly pushed top and bottom but in a way that's "most" kind to the producer's and engineer's original intent. Plus spread out on two 45rpm well-pressed discs gives every track ideal breathing room and max dynamic range. Of course after this album we'd all be hearing a lot more from all of the participants, which just makes this album all the more fun so many years later.

I've been told that while MusicDirect is out of it, copies linger at some dealers so were I you, I'd be asking around!