"Song For Our Ancestors," which opens the album, tastefully blends ocean sound effects with an instrumental background. This cut is much more successful than the Miller Band's previous attempt at a sound montage ("Psychedelic B.B.") which got a bit boring. "Dear Mary" is a very soft and slow ballad which makes me think about dancing close in the eighth grade when the lights were turned off. Miller sings the sentimental lyrics
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in an inoffensive falsetto.
The next tune is "My Friend," and it really rocks. The production is incredibly clean throughout the album, but this cut is the most outstanding. The arrangement is solid, with a good use of a sound effect simulating brass, in fact, the song has a strong feeling of Sly and the Family Stone.
"Living In The USA" starts off appropriately enough with drag strip sound effects. The song is a commentary on the US scene, but unfortunately some of the lyrics are rather weak. A good editor could have really perfected the words. The song is a real rocker though, and one cool moment occurs at the beginning of the fade out when Miller yells desperately, "Somebody get me a cheeseburger!" That line captures everything.
Side two begins with "Quicksilver Girl." This is a very commercial type of candy-rock song, and although it's pretty it is also quite ignorable. I like the line "She spreads her wings and she's free," but maybe I'm reading too much B. B. King into it.
"Lucky Man," features a very tasty acoustical guitar intro. It fades into the next cut, Johnny Guitar Watson's revived "Gangster of Love," which is a talking song in which the vocalist expounds his prowess as a lover ("Hey, Mr. Sheriff, that's your wife on the back of my horse"). This cut is pretty funny for a few times, but it tends to get old and "cute" pretty quickly. It is only a minute and a half long.
Following "Gangster" is a Jimmy Reed tune, "You're So Fine," which is the only straight blues cut on the album. It features some very good harp work. The song comes in heavy, but goes out weakly, and is thus not as successful as their earlier blues work. "Overdrive" is a strong Bo Diddley-type number, featuring a bottlenecked electric guitar. The lyrics are a bit "Oh wow, heavy!" but they don't get in the way. The guitar break is a bit disappointing however.
"Dime-A-Dance Romance" is really solid rock and roll. The bass line is nearly right out of "Jumpin' Jack Flash" and the whole song is really alive and exciting. The lyrics are excellent and blend well with the mood of the song. Both in its various parts and also as a whole, The song is perfectly constructed. This cut is the high point of the album.
The Miller Band is really toge
