Disraeli Gears

AMG Review of Disraeli Gears

Stephen Thomas Erlewine
All Music Guide

Cream teamed up with producer Felix Pappalardi for their second album, Disraeli Gears, a move that helped push the power trio toward psychedelia and also helped give the album a thematic coherence missing from the debut. This, of course, means that Disraeli Gears gets further away from the pure lues improvisatory troupe they were intended to be, but it does get them to be who they truly are: a massive, innovative power trio. The lues still courses throughout Disraeli Gears -- the swirling kaleidoscopic "Strange Brew" is built upon a riff lifted from Albert King -- but it's filtered into saturated colors, as it is on "Sunshine of Your Love," or it's slowed down and blurred out as it is on the ominous murk of "Tales of Brave Ulysses." It's a pure psychedelic move that's spurred along by Jack Bruce's flourishing collaboration with Pete Brown. Together, this pair steers this album away from recycled lues-rock and toward its eccentric British core, for with the fuzzy freak-out "Swlabr," the music hall flourishes of "Dance the Night Away," the swinging "Take It Back," and of course, the schoolboy singalong "Monther's Lament," this is a very British record. Even so, this crossed the ocean and became a major hit in America as well, because for no matter how whimsical certain segments are, Cream is still a heavy ock trio and Disraeli Gears is a quintessential heavy ock album of the '60s. Yes, its psychedelic trappings tie it forever to 1967, but the imagination of the arrangements, the strength of the compositions, and especially the force of the musicianship make this album transcend its time as well.