JIMI HENDRIX
Videos by American Songwriter
Valleys Of Neptune
(LEGACY RECORDS)
[Rating: 3 stars]
Valleys Of Neptune doesn’t offer up anything the casual Jimi Hendrix fan hasn’t already heard before. As the ninth record in a series of posthumous releases, Neptune provides a nostalgic trip back to the brief time between the landmark release of the Electric Ladyland album and the construction of the recording studio of the same name.
There’s plenty of familiarity throughout the twelve tracks that comprise Valleys Of Neptune. The album opens with an oddly lacking “Stone Free” that leads to other tracks from Are You Experienced? , including “Fire” and “Red House.” Highlights include an effortless seven-and-a-half minute “Hear My Train A-Comin’” and a meteoric version of “Lover Man.” The album also includes scorching covers of Cream’s “Sunshine of Your Love” and the Elmore James classic, “Bleeding Heart.”
As the opening release to a torrent of new and re-mastered tracks soon to be made available from the Jimi Hendrix Experience Catalog, Valleys of Neptune provides a peek into a musical period that started an influx of creativity that ended with Hendrix’s death in 1970. Re-mastered issues of the historic Jimi Hendrix Experience albums Are You Experienced?, Axis: Bold As Love, Electric Ladyland and First Rays Of The New Rising Sun will soon follow.
