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Title: Yes, James, I think I will take that moonlight drive!
Review: Now how about this? It didn't have any big singles, it seemed to just sort of slink past audiences (especially in comparison to the success of their debut), and to this day it's regarded as a good but not great effort. I disagree. This record is so strange, so trippy, so psychedelic, so timelessly dated (!), that, like a moonlit trance, it's hard not to get sucked in. On top of that, the songs are well-constructed, impeccably performed, and Morrison's lyrics seem to be not only pointed but meaningful and even--god bless you, James Morrison--poetic. It loses a lot of steam on Side Two, thanks to the kitschy "People Are Strange" (Echo & the Bunnymen made it seem better, since everything was worse in the Eighties), and "Horse Latitudes" on Side One is completely unnecessary. Otherwise, start to finish--mostly--this one's a blast.
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