****** - Verified Buyer
4.5
I have been acquainted with the TUSoA album since it was fairly new, and it always held interest for me. But rediscovering it now via this newly expanded Sundazed release has been a revelation.Joe Byrd's concept was to organize a group of musicians coming from other genres and disciplines to record a rock album, and the result was a conceptual masterpiece -- sonically progressive, lyrically adventurous, whose corruscating flavor could be termed (at different times) humorous, schmaltzy, daring, brazen, corrosive, sensuous. They even quote Hermann Hesse's "Steppenwolf." The album is arranged as a flowing, organic whole -- an experience that alternately charges, romps, coos seductively and shimmers like a flying saucer. I mean, what more can you ask of an album?The new remaster has given the album a full-bodied presence it has never had before. The bass playing is masterful and fluid (and has been mixed to reach down to the subwoofer, unlike some remasters I could name), but so is all the playing. There is something to love here, musically, whether you favor The Mothers of Invention, Jefferson Airplane, It's A Beautiful Day or Country Joe and the Fish... yet The USA seems more modern when heard today than any of those other acts. The vocals of Dorothy Moskowitz are often described as icy, but I find her sound warm and fragile on the classic "Love Song for the Dead Ché" and other times, as on "Hard Coming Love" as being casual, savvy and enticing. She would not sound at all out of place duetting with The Zombies' Colin Blunstone.As an added enticement, Sundazed has included several bonus tracks to the original album. Among these are USA's Columbia audition tapes (which sound spectacular), alternate versions ("I Won't Leave My Wooden Wife For You, Sugar" provocatively sung by Dorothy, but not as effectively as by the male vocalist on the album), and a few demo tracks from the Dorothy-led splinter group which never recorded an album of their own. These songs are softer and less complex than the material on the USA album, but interesting and at times infectious in their own right. "Tailor Man" has a particularly catchy groove that is hard to dismiss. She had her own sound, and a valid one.I post this at a time when there are several brilliant new releases vying for my ears, from Brian Wilson's SMiLE to Bjork's MEDULLA, and TUSoA -- thirty-some years old -- is exerting as strong and as fresh a pull on my attentions as any of them. It is probably my favorite album of the moment, which is saying a lot, if only in the face of SMiLE. Perhaps this is because the USA made only this one album, which makes it all the more precious, or it may be a testament to its creative invention, youthful vitality and sheer variety. The USA was a great, undervalued band who deserve broader recognition. I hope a recording will come forward someday to document how they sounded live.P.S.: I love knowing from Joe Byrd's liner notes that this album was played loud at a party in the home of a personal hero of mine, actor James Coburn. I picture him sitting in the midst of all his guests, playing along with "Coming Down" by banging a gong with complete abandon.
