The third coming of Love, heralded on Elektra's Sunset Strip billboard last summer, is upon us. The group has dropped its sixth and seventh members, originally added to sophisticate their music, and they have, in the end, produced their most sophisticated album yet, Forever Changes.

The hard Beatle-Byrd sound of their first album, which turned arty in their second (Da Capo), has been smoothed out quite a bit. Large scale orchestration augments the basic combo on several cuts, replacing the self-contained "orchestration" of Da Capo.

Forever Changes features fairly tight, well-arranged tracks. Its weakest point is in the material. Some of the songs meander and lack real melodic substance. Leader Arthur Lee composed 9 of the 11 cuts. In his quest for originality, Lee sometimes had trouble giving the songs continuity. "The Red Telephone" is an example of this. It contains both excellent and mediocre portions.

The strongest cut on the album is the opener, "Alone Again Or." Other good ones are "A House is not a Motel," "The Good Humor Man," "You Set the Scene" and "Andmoreagain." These and the other tunes on the album run the range from hard rock to folk to soft orchestration.

Despite the album's flaw of inconsistency, it is nice to listen to. The background orchestration is pleasant and the recording is technically good.

Love disappeared for a time before releasing this album, and it's good to have them back. Forever Changes provides some good stuff for open ears.

“Is It True”

As the British Invasion reached its peak in 1964, Brenda Lee went from Nashville to London to record one of her hardest-rocking hits, her perky vocal backed by a stuttering, squalling guitar. That guitar was played by session musician Jimmy Page, yet to skyrocket to fame with first the Yardbirds and then Led Zeppelin. "She said to me, 'I've come here to make a record with the British sound,'" remembered producer Mickie Most. "She felt she wouldn't get the same sound in Nashville because they're only just catching up on the British beat group sound of about six months ago."