THE DOORS: "L.A. Woman" + 11 Bonus Tracks

Original released on LP Elektra

EKS-75011 (US) / K-42090 (UK)

1971, April 29

The final album with Jim Morrison in the lineup is by far their most blues-oriented, and the singer's poetic ardor is undiminished, though his voice sounds increasingly worn and craggy on some numbers. Actually, some of the straight blues items sound kind of turgid, but that's more than made up for by several cuts that rate among their finest and most disturbing work. The seven-minute title track was a car-cruising classic that celebrated both the glamour and seediness of Los Angeles; the other long cut, the brooding, jazzy "Riders on the Storm," was the group at its most melodic and ominous. It and the far bouncier "Love Her Madly" were hit singles, and "The Changeling" and "L'America" count as some of their better little-heeded album tracks. An uneven but worthy finale from the original quartet. (Richie Unterberger in AllMusic)

The original Doors (though they didn't know it as they wrote and recorded it) go out in a blaze of glory, picking up the returning blues and jazz influences where they left off with "Morrison Hotel" but becoming far more panoramic, ethereal, and impressionistic (just listen deep to "L'America," the title track, and "Riders on the Storm") - without cutting the heart out of the music. (And, in the cases of "Cars Hiss by My Window" and "The W.A.S.P. [Texas Radio and the Big Beat]," coming up with some of the best blues of their career.) You could argue successfully that the group's musicianship hadn't been this strong in too long, and if Jim Morrison does sound a little spiritually exhausted in some places, he manages somehow to make it work for the material in the appropriate places. And if you can find a more haunting album closer than "Riders on the Storm," which is probably as elevated a Morrison epitaph (and with maybe the band's best studio playing since "Strange Days") and second theme for the Doors themselves as can be found (would you trade even one measure of "Riders" for the whole of "The End?"), well, mister you're a better man than I. (Jeff Kallman in AllMusic)