Some explosions leave more rubble than cleared ground.
An acquired taste if ever there was one, the eccentric Oar was up against stacked odds from the first, for reasons other than the sheer number of releases pitched at the peace-loving longhair crowd. The third album from the racially integrated L.A. band, now resurfacing in a deluxe remastered edition, Forever Changes first appeared in the fall of 1967. Consisting largely of acoustic songs set against a background of strings with the odd flamenco flourish, Forever Changes sounds like a response to the innovations put forward by The Beatles and The Beach Boys while adding twists unique to the Sunset Strip scene and frontman Arthur Lee's own twisted psyche. In retrospect, it's not hard to see Forever Changes as a link between the first explosion of psychedelic optimism and the darker sounds then emerging from Love's labelmate The Doors and Lee's friend Jimi Hendrix. But at first, all those foreboding lyrics set to sunny melodies must have sounded too far ahead of their time, or too much of it.