 Songs of Experience was released in October 1969 by Capitol Records on stereo LP . In a retrospective review , AllMusic 's Thom Jurek gave the album four @-@ and @-@ a @-@ half out of five stars and said that Axelrod " succeeded in spades " in his search for a sound that " best exemplified not only his feelings but also the heady text he sought to sonically illustrate . " Jurek felt that his compositions were diverse , lush , and able to resemble literature by " using as much space as they do sound for dramatic and dynamic effect " , and that Axelrod created original palettes for rock instrumentation through his complex use of the horn section 's " various colors " . Lynell George of the Los Angeles Times called it a " prescient , genre @-@ defying " solo project , and NME viewed it as a " landmark " album . Mojo cited the album , along with Song of Innocence , as Axelrod 's artistic peak and particularly praised " The Human Abstract " as " beautiful and blank " , evoking " the view from Arthur Lee 's castle of an endless pale blue sky and the vast deathly city beneath it . " Songs of Experience was reissued on CD in 2000 by EMI . 
