by Pete Johnson, Los Angeles Times

The Doors, a quartet who have been playing in the Los Angeles area for some time, have come up with their first album, which is named after them.

This Elektra album has a strange, new sound, but it is not strange in the fascinating directions pursued by the Rolling Stones, Dylan, Donovan or the Beatles.

Jim Morrison, lead vocalist, has a voice similar to that of Eric Burdon, the Animal's singer, but he is somewhat overmannered, murky and dull.

The best example of his faults is The End, an eleven-minute thirty-five second exploration of how bored he can sound as he recites singularly simple, overelaborated psychedelic non-sequiturs and fallacies.

Many of the numbers drag, and there is an abundance of banal lyrics, but the Doors do sound fairly good on Break On Through, their current single, Twentieth Century Fox, and Alabama Song which has a good backing rhythm and passable harmony.




Copyright 2003 by Pete Johnson/Waiting-forthe-Sun.net)