Metamorphosis

Sound DNA

• Rock
• Psych Rock

• heavy
• driving
• psychedelic

About

Guitarist Erik Brann had left the group before <i>Metamorphosis</i>, replaced by Mike Pinera and Larry “Rhino” Reinhardt. Those two were originally given equal billing with the remaining group, known as “Iron Butterfly with Pinera and El Rhino.” This album would fare commercially less well than <i>Ball</i>, but it did feature the No. 66 single “Easy Rider (Let the Wind Pay the Way),” the group’s second-highest-charting single. (“In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida” had been their biggest hit at No. 30.) Singer/organist Doug Ingle remained the band’s chief singer, but the songs here are mostly composed by the band’s core members: Ingle, bassist Lee Dorman, and drummer Ron Bushy, with Robert Woods Edmonson writing the lyrics for four songs, including the anti-smoking-industrialization ballad “Slower Than Guns,” the hippy-trippy love song “Soldier in Our Town," and the “Easy Rider” single. The extended jam of “Butterfly Bleu” features Pinera on vocals and is the heaviest jam the band had attempted on album since “In-a-Gadda-Da-Vida.” The addition of the two guitarists (with two more guitarists guesting on 12-string guitars) makes <i>Metamorphosis</i> the group’s most musically adventurous album and, arguably, their best.

via Apple Music

Tracklist

Credits