Rating: 8
Best Song – “Little Wing”
If there were some sort of critic consensus Hall of Fame, I
feel it’s safe to say that Axis: Bold as Love would be in it. So perhaps
some words on why it doesn’t make my personal one. It's the melodies! (or lack thereof) This complaint is not an uncommon one on some of the
websites I read, but I do feel it’s worth pointing out that Jimi was capable of
writing great songs, so it would be grossly unfair to completely disparage his
songwriting abilities. Instead, I would say he was an inconsistent songwriter
and although a very good one on the whole, not up to the same level as some of
his 60s contemporaries.
So where Are You Experienced? struck the
right balance for me between great guitar-playing and great pop songwriting, I find Axis to be yet another excellent album from
a guitar-playing perspective (probably goes without saying) but only a solid one from a melody perspective. The album is a fairly even one, but it operates at a level of 'pretty good' rather than 'great'. Where nearly every song on the debut was a landmark in its own right,
here we got a lot of overly simplistic pop songs that all run together,
distinguished only by whether the guitar playing particularly catches my fancy
(for example, the relaxed riff on “Wait Until Tomorrow” draws my attention, but
the rocking distortion of “Little Miss Lover” doesn’t really), which I imagine
to be a fairly random impression anyways.
Of course, I still rate the album highly and it’s because you can always just listen to the guitar parts and be entertained. And there is at least one undisputed
classic – “Little Wing,” which is one of those rare songs here that feels epic, with
its guitar solo that suddenly takes flight, and yet is in actuality two and a
half minutes long. But I’m not sure it’s entirely a good thing when the song
written by the bassist (“She’s So Fine”) is one of the most memorable on the
album. Still, Axis is absolutely worth absorbing, just after the
other two Hendrix albums.
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