Being that there's no over-emphasizing its importance, Arthur Lee aficionados can claim a certain amount of credibility in heralding the newly unearthed Love Lost as Love's holy grail, the missing link between the band's latter trajectory and Lee's transition into an ultimately abbreviated solo career.  While several of these songs were rerecorded and released in different versions at a later time, Love Lost presents this material in primal form, stripped down and still in the process of shaping and discovery.    When these sessions were initiated in mid 1971, the Love legacy had pretty much run its course as far as the band's recorded output was concerned, and Lee's focus on a new direction well beyond the original group's regal psychedelia was well on its way.  Although Lee's stature as an African American musician had been viewed as something of an anomaly amidst the pure pop, day-glo happenstance of the mid and late `60s, by the end of that era and the start of the `70s Lee had shed the artiness and artifice and was weighing in with a darker imprint.    Sharing many of the same sentiments as his good friend and occasional collaborator, Jimi Hendrix (check out "Midnight Sun, a near note- for-note recasting of "Axis Bold As Love"), the music began tilting more towards deeper grooves and a grittier approach, and even in this rudimentary form, these sessions exemplify Lee's more primal intents.  Those hoping for the expansive sound of Forever Changes will scarcely recognize the straight-ahead, Hendrix-infused sound demonstrated here, and as emphasized by the inclusion of several acoustic demos, the rawer elements of Lee's music are clearly evidences.  Even so, accessibility isn't in short supply; the riveting "Love Jumped Through My Window," the soon-to-be standard "Everybody's Gotta Live" and a deft medley incorporating a short snippet of Jimi's "Ezy Ryder" help illustrate Love's later evolution.  Likewise, a detailed essay inside the gatefold sleeve offers further enlightenment about Lee's oeuvre at the time.    More intriguing than essential for casual fans, this glimpse at a work in progress will likely be coveted by Love and Lee's devotees. -Lee Zimmerman --Blurt, December 4, 2009Poor LOVE and ARTHUR LEE. If there's such a thing as the curse of a masterpiece, they suffered it. As creators of Forever Changes, one of the most justifiably acclaimed and iconic psychedelic recordings of the 60s, Lee and whatever musicians with which he surrounded himself would find any work done since compared to the signpost and inevitably found wanting. This has led to most of Love's post-_Changes_ work being dismissed as inconsequential on the face of it, which, to my mind, is unfair. Sure, the late 60s Love albums aren't as good as Forever Changes, but how could they have been? Like so many landmarks, that album was the result of a particular time, place and set of circumstances coinciding with a peak in the artist's talent - recreation or even emulation is impossible. So let's not judge Lee's later work solely on the basis of his personal apex, but on the quality of the work itself. Which brings us to Love Lost. Recorded in 1971 as part of an ill-fated deal with Columbia Records, this album (allegedly to be called Dear You) would later be cannibalized for Lee's solo debut Vindicator. As with most of his later music, Lee's songs rest in bluesy hard rock settings, a milieu which may not allow for the subtleties inherent in his more celebrated work, but is nonetheless effective. The pummeling "Product of the Times" (appearing as a studio recording for the first time), the lustful "He Knows a Lot of Good Women" and the amazing "I Can't Find It" tremble under the attack of particularly ragged arrangements, but never fall - Lee's songsmithery can withstand such rough treatment. Topped with Lee's near-maniacal vocal performances (a subject of some controversy, due to suspicions that Lee was deliberately sabotaging the recordings), the tracks blaze with energy and excitement. It may not be Forever Changes, but it's still great rock & roll. Making a good thing even better, though, is the inclusion of nearly a half-dozen demos, with Lee backing himself on acoustic guitar so percussive it makes a full band unnecessary. "He Said She Said," "Sad Song," the lascivious (and, by today's standards, politically incorrect) "Good & Evil," which also appears in electric form, the previously unreleased "For a Day" and especially "Love Jumped Through My Window" (which opens this record) are all stellar songs, strong in both melody and performance, which is again somewhat - deliberately? - rough and raw. Love Lost may not be as flat-out brilliant as Forever Changes, but it holds up nicely on its own as a worthy chapter in the book of Love. -Michael Toland --The Big Takeover, December 5, 2009The long wilderness years of Arthur Lee, the mercurial singer-songwriter-commander of the Los Angeles band Love, began with an abandoned 1971 LP for Columbia, now resurrected on Love Lost (Sundazed). By then, Lee was four years and several Love lineups away from the dark orchestral magic of 1967's Forever Changes. The full-band tracks here are heavy serrated-guitar rock (this is the Love I saw at a late-1970 Fillmore East show), and Lee's writing is aggressively blunt in "Everybody's Gotta Live" (re-cut for his 1974 solo debut, Vindicator) and "Product of the Times". But there is a fighting magnetism in the music and Lee's voice. He sings with fierce engagement even on acoustic demos like "Sad Song". Lee slipped in and out of sight after this, until the end-of-the-century Love revival. But it is clear here that even on the eve of exile, Lee had much love to give. -David Fricke --Rolling StoneThis is pretty exciting - the missing link between the False Start Love and early Arthur Lee solo material like Vindicator and the also unreleased Black Beauty. Recorded in 1971, this putative major label debut is the seedbed for those later two records but superior to both in its loose energy. Mixing acoustic demos with spirited riff-rock work-outs - including Craig Tarwater from the Sons Of Adam, famed for their killer cover of Lee's "Feathered Fish" - Love Lost plays very well. Only occasionally does it verge on the wilful sloppiness that apparently sabotaged the project. But songs like "He Said She Said" - with its lyrical reference to Vietnam - are worthy additions to the Love canon. As is the final track, "Trippin' And Slippin'/Ezy Rider", which over six minutes inhabits the recently departed spirit of Jimi Hendrix. Well if anyone was entitled, Arthur Lee was. -Jon Savage --Mojo, March 2010