AKA: Rides Again

James Gang Rides Again 1970 Album

James Gang

As it turned out there was a reason to take these guys seriously. Maybe Rides Again did not place them in the major leagues of hard rock bands, but it was a damn good try, and compared to some of their American counterparts, there were a lot of attractive facets to their sound. When all is said and done, what many people will remember is "Funk #49" - a hammed-up re-working of the previous record's "Funk #48", where the band's in-unison chant of "I KNOW WHERE YOU'RE GOING" was enough of a calling card by its' damn self - never mind that Walsh and new bassist Dale Peters trick out the track with loads of in-your-face guitar and bass lines. But the album has a few more epics in store. "The Bomber" has some big elements working in its' favor. The original "Closet Queen" section is more of a psychedelic take on the "Funk 49" idea, and then the group gets very mystical on our asses for the "Bolero" and "Cast Your Fate to the Wind" midsections, before bringing us back to the main groove for the finish. Then, buried in the second, more mellow half of the record, are purely gorgeous tracks such as "Tend My Garden" and "Ashes, the Rain, and I", which combine the orchestration from the debut album and Walsh's song craft to good effect. What works in JG's favor is that this is definitely a more realized experience, although, like the debut, there are quite a few bridge tracks that sound nice, but serve no real purpose other than to fill out the record as a whole. It would have been nice if Walsh or someone else in the band could have contributed a few more songs of the up-tempo variety.