Golden Earring - Seven Tears (1971) {2001, Reissue}

Seven Tears finds Golden Earring continuing to develop its distinctive blend of hard rock and prog elements, but the end result is not as consistent as 1970's Golden Earring. The big problem this time out is that the group's adventurous genre-hopping tendencies don't always result in strong songs: "Silver Ships" is a soft, science fiction-influenced song that generates a potent atmosphere but lacks the strong arrangement and sense of dynamics that would allow it to take flight, and "You're Better Off Free" loses sight of its catchy tune with a lengthy midsection guitar jam that derails an otherwise interesting song. Despite these problems, Seven Tears shows a band willing to take big risks to transform its combination of elements into a totally unique style. When this alchemy works, the results are quite good: "The Road Swallowed Her Name" effectively blends a heavy guitar riff worthy of Black Sabbath with psychedelic lyrics and percussion, and "Hope" generates the down-and-out feeling of its lyrics with a descending saxophone riff guaranteed to stick in the listener's head. The album's highlight is "She Flies on Strange Wings," an art rock epic that combines verses done in a stomping, heavy metal style with spacy choruses and a slow, dreamy midsection that is strongly reminiscent of Pink Floyd. Overall, Seven Tears is more like a collection of songs than a fully realized album, but there are enough strong moments to make it worthwhile for hardcore Golden Earring fans.