Collage

Album Review

By the time Paul Revere & the Raiders got around to recording Collage, the original group was down to Revere and singer Mark Lindsay, who not only produced but wrote or co-wrote nine of the 11 songs on this album. In a last ditch effort to distance themselves from their firmly entrenched AM radio/singles band image, the group was simply billed as the "Raiders," with this incarnation including guitarists-singers Keith Allison and Freddy Weller, a formidable combination of talent. In the rush to embrace the musical changes in the air and on the air, the Raiders finally produced their "psychedelic" album. There's a pantsload of fuzzy guitar noodling, time signature changes, groovy horn charts à la Blood, Sweat & Tears, trippy headphone cross-fading, and other hip production techniques of the time, all popping in and out of the album like the ear-candy it was meant to be. The lyrical focus skitters between be-one-with-the-band/life-on-the-road exploits and hippie sloganeering and social-consciousness raising, with a solid version of Laura Nyro's "Save the Country" kicking off the album. Of special interest is the later redo of "Gone-Movin' On," which had appeared on an earlier Paul Revere & the Raiders album, Revolution!, in a totally different version and arrangement. While fans of the bands' early hit 45s should avoid this album like the plague, completists and true believers will definitely want to add it to their collections.