Review Summary: Eagles look for a big artistic statement with their second album, building a dense cinematic distinguished sound
With their second album, the Eagles wanted to achieve an undoubtable artistic statement, trying a sort of concept about western outlaws and male loneliness drawing a parallel with rockstars' behind-the-scenes world of weirdness. The band strives hard to successfully build an authentic, bold coloured and dense, kinda cinematic, musical sound that could suite the epic premise of this operation and, despite the fact that there's not enough material to build a concrete concept, an elevated atmosphere is tangible since the listening beginning. "Doolin-Dalton" is about the notorious 19th century bandits gang but can be about any young lad on the verge of a decadent music career breakthrough. Here we have the edification of a mature language for the band, that masterfully makes this slow paced great-plains-wide classic music form its own trademark, pointing so very soon the end of their apprenticeship to enter in a limited major league of relevance for their contemporary american music. The same features define "Tequila sunrise" and the even more dramatical "Desperado", powerful and stunning melodies that had become instant classics with undeniable merit and appropriateness. But the album is not all epic crepuscular elegance, because there are abrasive hard rock cuts that keep the listening fresh and tense ("Out of control", "Outlaw man"). Bernie Leadon maintains the purist approach he holds dear and so offers western historically accurate numbers in which he displays his abilities with banjo, dobro and mandolin ("Twenty-one") and tasty bending muddy guitars ("Bitter creek"). Side Two offers almost forgotten gems unfairly obscured by the first side masterpieces, the Meisner co-written and vocal lead "Certain kind of fool", a terrific track gifted with some of the best sonics in the entire album, and the moon lighted dreamy "Saturday night" with a breathtaking arrangement and incredibly effective chorus lines and lead vocal interplay.
Originally published on rateyourmusic.com: https://rateyourmusic.com/release/album/eagles/desperado/reviews/1/
