Steppenwolf's first album was a pleasant surprise. In a season of mainly mediocre releases, even the best albums of recent months (with your choice of exceptions) suffered from a depressing unevenness and should have been much better. By comparison, Steppenwolf's first was a model of consistency which stood up well to repeated listening. While it opened up no new worlds of music, the album did demonstrate that the "known world" of hard rock and roll still contains fertile land to cultivate, rich veins to mine, and plenty of room to stake out a claim. As the trade papers might have said: "A solid first outing by a promising new group."

However, it is the second album which often transforms a "promising new group" into a "flash-in-the-pan has been." Some such performers have talent and depth enough for only one good album. (It's been said that everyone has one good novel in him; the percentage for record albums is somewhat lower.) Other young musicians have difficulty "getting it together" when confronted with the pressures accompanying an initial success: traveling, concerts, interviews, business hassles, ego conflicts etc.

Happily, The Second, if it does not actually fulfill, certainly sustains the promise of the first LP. It shows not only that Steppenwolf is a very strong group, but that it has its own distinct identity Musically, The Second is an extension and refinement of ideas present in the earlier effort. But it also exposes a few weaknesses.

Steppenwolf plays with a remarkable sense of musical economy combined with admirable taste. Virtually everything in their arrangements fits, and fits together. Each instrument complements the others; the music doesn't strain against itself, but moves ever forward. And this is mostly dense, hard–driving music, largely based upon shifting tempos and the interaction of several rhythmic levels. Listen to the first two verses of "Magic Carpet Ride" (the group's current single): The organ and bass are playing what might be called alternate drum lines, while the drummer plays yet another figure ... very tight, tasty counterpoint.

John Kay, the lead singer, wrote most of the album's material. On two cuts he is assisted by Gabriel Mekler. Mekler is also responsible for "28," one of the best songs on the album. For the most part it is competent journeyman material. As a lyricist, Kay has some of Mick Jagger's ability to take a simple, banal, even non-grammatic phrase and make it work in the correct context. (Consider "I can't get no satisfaction.") "Don't Step on the Grass, Sam" is a good example of this. It's all about the "noble weed" and is a very amusing dope song ... as dope songs go.

As a singer, Kay has a serviceable enough voice and can handle slow blues material satisfactorily. But it is his attack and phrasing on upbeat numbers which lend distinction to his performances. He is foremost a rhythm singer, just as the group is a rhythm band. His voice often functions as one more instrument, sometimes dominating, sometimes accompanying, but always interacting with the rest of the group.

There is, however, a certain lack of variety in Kay's singing and in his songs. On first listening, only a few individual tracks stand out from the others. Only on "Spiritual Fantasy" are the lyrics adolescently pompous, and the addition of syrupy strings certainly does not help it.

The last five titles on side B are actually one long track, an attempt at a kind of "evolution of the blues." However, it should be noted that Steppenwolf is not really a blues band, any more than, say, the Rolling Stones are a blues band. They have successfully assimilated their blues influences to the point where these sources can be used or abandoned at will to create a unique musical expression. What we have here is more a tribute than an attempt at reconstruction.

The track opens with birds singing and an acoustic guitar picking country blues. Kay comes in, doing a credible job singing slow blues. The guitar moves into some Robert Johnson-like figures. Drums and bass, followed by a down-home piano, move in to fill out the bottom. The guitar shifts to bottleneck style as the tempo picks up.

By now we're up to early Chicago blues and an electric guitar comes in to underscore the fact. At this point the rhythm shifts and the piano is replaced by an organ playing more contemporary fills behind Kay's vocal. Then into a quasi-Memphis style section as the tempo gradually increases, culminating in a Kay variation on "Shake Your Moneymaker." The side closes with a short, wistful coda which seems a little anticlimactic.

There are a few extended instrumental solos on the record, none particularly striking. Rather, Steppenwolf's forte is in the ensemble work, functioning as a group. If Steppenwolf continues to show the degree of improvement and consistency displayed here, the third album will be a monster. (RS 22)

DAVID BUTCHER