Very much a transitional record, even though in many places it sounds much like the records that preceded it. It’s loud, gruff, and angry – like a lot of other acts from 1970 – but one gets the feeling it’s all too quickly burning into oblivion. The last album the band recorded before the death of guitarist Alan “Blind Owl” Wilson, and his contributions are notable here. Ironically, the hit single from the album was the only one sung by Bob Hite (“Let’s Work Together”).

The second Bloodrock record in their post-progressive phase (and that's debatable) is something else altogether - a real serious move away from the original sound - unlike the previous album, where there were still some links. One other thing worth mentioning is the cover, which, like the last album, completely reflects the band's move to art rock in a big way. I can only imagine the look on the average record buyer's face back in the day, though, when confronted with such an image, and even now, have to admit gives me a feeling of a group that was a little too above it all for its' own good.

For real, any talk of comeback as it relates to Aerosmith – and that’s debatable, to my ears - starts and ends with the remake of "Walk This Way". If we don't want to do that, then Done With Mirrors is a decent hard rock album for a heck of a lot of other lesser bands in this world. For Aerosmith, who once scaled the highest of the highs (both literal and figurative), this is what it had come to - a struggle to hang on for relevancy. Throw out a dark, grumbly throwback which scrapes the nether regions of FM rock radio ("Shela") that pleases the old-time fans, re-use some old Joe Perry stuff ("Let the Music Do the Talking"), and everywhere else do just enough to keep everyone wondering - is the revival still within reach? Or was this on life support, and was it time to pull the plug?

This is true to the spirit of the 70's records, even though there are a few nods to the 80's here and there, like the goofy synth lead in to "Lightning Strikes". The band is still on the downside from its' drug and concert debacles and now under the very unsteady control of Tyler, yet the album is not even close to being a failure. The strangest tangent may be the whole "Joanie's Butterfly" deal, and actually, the only part that really bothers me is the "Prelude", where I never can understand Tyler's electronically-treated spoken-word bit, which is puzzling. "Butterfly" itself is an OK, art-rock type-of song which reminds me of a more light-hearted version of "Kings and Queens", but on this record, feels a bit out of place. It definitely stretches for something far out of the normal reach of the content of this album, which is - the gutter. And that, to me, is something that should really interest the hardcore fan which got into the band in the first place. Tracks like "Jailbait", "Jig Is Up", and "Bolivian Ragamuffin" are right in that rough house, first or second album ball park, but with noticeable swaths of vulnerability thrown in. "Bitch's Brew", for me, is the pick, which could have come straight out of the Toys in the Attic days, especially the spaced-out, quivering-on-the-void mid-section. Just an amazing throwback. "Push Comes to Shove", as well, shares a lot of the strange mood that an older track like "Pandora's Box" had going for it. The drawback here is, at this low point, that is about all the band had going for them - recall the old days by piling on the excess, money, and more drugs than you can ever imagine. Apparently, 3 years and around $1.5 million were spent eking out the album which took some 20 years to garner a gold record. So, I guess the moral is - you win some and you lose some?

The very process behind making this record was tumultuous, to say the least, with Joe Perry leaving the group mid-record in the midst of a public on-stage row during a summer show - leaving Tyler and the rest of the band to complete the record later in the year with fill-ins (Richie Supa and Jimmy Crespo). The actual album cover photo was shot way back in early 1978, which tells you how long the band had this in the works. Whatever the case, the finished product does feel like a bits-and-pieces affair, even though Perry laid down most of his guitar parts before he left. The junkie feel from Draw The Line has faded away a bit (although still noticeable, mainly in Tyler's vocals), replaced by a more manic, edgy sort of driving feeling, as if the band was on a mission to recapture past glory. However, on the faster, or heavier tracks, there's something missing. Probably the best of these - and we are splitting hairs here - is the opener "No Surprize", which roughly tells the story of how the band made it big. But strangely enough, it feels like they are more reliant than ever on ear-splitting volume than gut-wrenching tone, and it starts to wear on the listener a bit by the time you get to covers like "Reefer Headed Woman" and "Think About It". Where I think the band comes up relative aces is on their reading of the Shangri-La's "Walking in the Sand" and the ending ballad "Mia". With the group in the broken state that they were at the time, the spooky reminiscence of the former track - and Tyler really going for it vocally at certain points - along with understated pathos of the latter track, earns the band a few sympathy points as a token return for the bridges and paths broken at this point in their careers. Fun times were not ahead, although without Perry, Tyler and the rest gamely kept the thing running on fumes, as we shall soon see….