THE JIMI HENDRIX EXPERIENCE: AXIS - BOLD AS LOVE

A few months after the excellent ''Are You Experienced'' album, this ''Axis-Bold Of Love'' followed. IMHHO, it was too premature.

It holds very few of the legendary tracks that the band will immortalize during their live sets. ''Spanish Castle Magic'' is one of these and by far my preferred song from this album. It is an ocean of wildness: crying and desperate guitar and a superb rhythmic section. One of his all time best for sure.

The sound is much more bluesy and jazzy than on their debut which was a psychedelic anthem. Songs as ''Up From The Skies'', ''Wait Until Tomorrow'' definitely don't belong to the best of his repertoire.

A disjointed spoken opening track could have been easily avoided and it is a pity that ''Ain't No Telling'' is so short. It holds all the ingredients of a great Hendrix track but would have deserved to be developed a bit further. But there was maybe no time for this.

The bluesy ballad ''Little Wing'' is also a highlight from this album. Very emotional guitar solo to conclude this very short song (alas). ''Castles Made Of Sand'' is pretty much the same: a fine ballad with a romantic vocal part. Not bad. ''One Rainy Wish'' is the third and last one of this type featured on the album.

The longest piece of music here is a combination between blues, psychedelia and improvisation. Although it shows some good parts, this track is globally a bit deceiving, loose.

''She's So Fine'' is quite an exception in Hendrix's discography. It was written by Noël Redding with no contribution whatsoever from the master. It sounds very Beatles-esque to tell the truth (''Sgt. Pepper's'' period). The most psyche track of the whole and another good number as well. One of my fave actually. Along with the closing and title track ''As Bold As Love''.

This album is not very even and stands quite behind their debut one. Too many average tracks peppered this album to make it a good one. Five out of ten rounded down to two stars is my rating.

If you are a casual Hendrix fan or if you are willing to discover the work form this giant and you don't know too much from him (which is quite normal on such a site), I can only recommend the debut ''Are You Experienced''.

Axis:Bold as Love followed the monstrous achievement of the previous album,released just a few months earlier in the magical year of 1967.If the Monterey Pop Festival helped the success of Jimi Hendrix's career by introducing the Experience to the USA,this album came to confirm Hendrix as a true icon of the late 60's musical scene,side by side with anti-Vietnam heroes such as Bob Dylan and more obscurely The Doors.

It's curious that some may claim it was released in a premature way,given the fact that it's one of the best produced albums of the 60s.If Are You Experienced was the recorded statement of a series of stage constructed numbers,Axis is properly a studio album with mellower songs,focused in the whole trio of virtuosos intead of the guitar god alone.In fact,Hendrix's contribution to the album is much less dominant,which may take away some the fist album's fury and rawness,but helps creating a balance worthy of a proto-prog album,specially in the wonderfully melodic title track and the classic Castles Made of Sand.

Little Wing is part of the eletric guitar's basic vocabulary,for each and every person who ever attempted to learn the instrument knows this short tune's introduction is one of the most inseresting joints of rythm and melody ever forged.Only the song lenght is somewhat frustrating,considering some less than average tracks(for instance Wait Until Tomorrow,Up From The Skies) could have been kept out in favor of longer developments of the true gems this album contains.And there's of course place for a hippie workout,which unforntunately is the logest track in the album,named If 6 was 9.

Despite the clear tenderness of the compositions(led by an equally softer voice),the best moment of Axis has to be the extremely heavy Spanish Castle Magic,a song wich takes out the best of psychedelia and gives us a sample of an era,extremely exciting and no longer than exact three minutes.

If ever The Jimi Hendrix Experience was close to the most primitive form of prog,it was here.Guitars take a step back in favor of most band oriented compositions,slightly softer and much mellower throughout.For what this supernaturaly gifted guitarist best qualities are worth,Axis is perhaps a bit of a slip.But it couldn't possibly be so,because Hedrix was conscient he was sacrificing space in the music in favor of a better album,perhaps the Experience best moment as a group.There would be enough place in the following recording for Jimi to immortalize his abilities over a Fender Stratocaster bringing it up forth again,but the best to do here is to enjoy what is perhaps the best trio of the 60's psychedelia,Cream being the only possible contender.

3.5 stars really!!!

A more difficult album that often gets overlooked, stuck between its two encumbering neighbours AYE? And EL, A:BAL is nevertheless another excellent album. Stuck with that Hindu artwork, it's certainly noticeable in the racks, but it didn't carry any of the high profile hit tracks like its predecessor, so even nowadays, the album is not as "evident", in part due to some experiments.

Starting with the mind-blowing EXP track, the album produces a string of better-known tracks such as Spanish Castle, Little Wing, She's So Fine (a rare Redding-penned track), If 6 Was 9, but overall the album suffers from lesser material and there are a few fillers. Hendrix's guitar antics are still as convincing Mitchell's drumming still amazing and Redding's pedestrian bass quite apt, but Jimi was not even waiting for Noel anymore and a good third of the tracks feature him on bass. But an overly-gifted muso like Hendrix was also toying with the odd piano and blowing in a flute, which you'll hear during the course of the album.

Definitely lost between its cumbersome forerunner and successor, A:BAL remains a must for most progheads and it might even get a better opinion than the other two experiences, especially those into psych/space rock.

Following the life-changing, personal mind explosion that was "Are You Experienced" in mid '67 I simply could not get enough of Hendrix. I was a bug-eyed, slobbering addict. I had a Jones for Jimi. I even let myself be suckered into buying an LP by some unknown named Curtis Knight because the cover said "featuring Jimi Hendrix." It was a blatantly opportunistic scam. While my hero may have been in the backup band, he had about as much to do with the music as the janitor who cleaned up the studio after the session. While that taught me a valuable lesson about the seedy side of capitalism it had no effect on my unquenchable thirst for anything Hendrix so, by the time the stateside version of "Axis: Bold as Love" was released in January '68, I was pacing outside my local record shop like a caged puma when they opened for the day, cash in fist. While it didn't have the drastic, dramatic impact on my consciousness that the debut had (in retrospect, few things in my life did), it met my rock & roll requirements and lofty expectations and I ended up wearing the grooves out of the vinyl nonetheless. To be completely honest, it hasn't held up to scrutiny over the 40+ years since its release even remotely as well as its predecessor has. It's truly yet another case of the sophomore jinx at work.

But first I must breach the subject of the Brontosaurus in the room that is the ostentatious and amazingly garish cover art. It stands as the pinnacle of the iniquity that is miscommunication for all eternity to come. I can only imagine the awkward scene that unfolded when Track Records' Boss Hogg confronted the art department's head honcho after the project had long since gone to press.

Fat Cat: "Great Caesar's ghost, what the hell is THIS?" Art guy: "Wha..? You said Jimi had Indian blood in him." Fat Cat: "You lug nut! Does he LOOK like he's from New Delhi?" Art guy: "Oh! You meant THOSE Indians? Ooops. My bad."

Thus this set of songs is branded forevermore with an undeniably colorful, eye-catching veneer that's about as appropriate as a rendering of Jim Morrison sporting the papal tiara while fronting the Mormon Tabernacle Choir. Human error on this scale borders on the sublime.

On to the music. You know how you look back on a TV sci-fi program from your youth that you thought was the nazz at the time but now it's just silly? That's the album's opening sequence, "EXP," in a nutshell. Hendrix's short radio play was neat-o to my then 18-year-old, unjaded ears but other than Jimi's wild feedback frenzy (that proved that my record player was, indeed, a stereo device) the whole thing is shamefully dated even if it was, after all, the sixties. "Up From the Skies" follows and to say his legion of fans were collectively caught off-guard is putting it mildly. We were expecting (and wanting) his fiery lightning to strike and burn into our skulls immediately but what we got was a smooth saunter through Jazzville where Hendrix's coy wah-wah guitar and Mitch Mitchell's whispering brush strokes made us reluctantly stop and consider that maybe we'd underestimated the versatility of these dudes.

The aggressive introductory barrage that starts "Spanish Castle Magic" was more in the fashion of what we craved to hear. It has a very prog progression, for sure, but that doesn't necessarily make it good. The song is not melodic at all. It's as if he wrote the guitar parts first and then struggled to devise vocal lines that would fit over them. There's just something essential missing and there lies the rub. Unlike the professional tone they achieved on their debut, this record has all the appearances of being slapped together in a hurry to meet a deadline, much to its detriment. However the next tune, "Wait Until Tomorrow," is as slick and tight a track as they come so go figure. Jimi's slinky guitarisms are on full display as he glides effortlessly over the frets and Mitchell's suitably wicked drum fills are delightful and fun. Hendrix's humorous story about a botched elopement is engaging as he delivers clever lines like "do I see a silhouette/of someone pointing something from a tree?/click, bang!/what a hang/your daddy just shot poor me."

"Ain't No Telling" is a penned-on-the-fly, straight-ahead steamroller that doesn't even pretend to disguise Jimi's James Brown hot soul roots for a solitary second. A few well-placed kicks and accents help keep the song from becoming too predictable. Next up is the impeccable "Little Wing," featuring Hendrix's timeless and brilliantly executed preamble to what may be his most distinctive composition. The unexpected addition of a glockenspiel adds just the right touch of magic to words like "she's walking through the clouds/with a circus mind that's running wild/butterflies and Zebras/moonbeams and fairy tales/that's all she ever thinks about/riding with the wind." For a guy not known for his literary acumen, that's mighty poetic stuff. "If 6 Was 9" stands in sharp contrast to that tune's beauty, with Jimi's muscle-bound Strat throwing jabs to your gut like a heavyweight champ who's got you on the ropes. The complex jazz chords on the chorus are inspired, Noel Redding speed-walks his bass around the lead like a man possessed, Mitch's closed rolls are immaculate and Hendrix's unadorned, bare vocals make it sound like he's standing beside you. Here the creep factor is almost overwhelming as he orates prophetically "I'm the one who's got to die when it's time for me to die/so let me live my life the way I want to." The extended ending is psychedelic and fanciful as all get out with Jimi flaying away on a recorder like a paranoid Toucan tripping on LSD while trying to remember how to fly. It's phenomenally prog.

"You Got Me Floating" isn't bad for the pop rocker it was obviously intended to be but don't expect any surprises along the way. On "Castles Made of Sand" we get another dose of Hendrix's delicate and tasty guitar work but the looseness of the underlying track makes it feel horribly rushed until they get to the slower reprise that arrives too late to save it. The brief backwards guitar solo is definitely worth dropping in for, though. Noel's weak entry, "She's So Fine," only exacerbates his dearth of talent outside of being a bassist. Its only saving grace is that it runs by quickly. The proggy "One Rainy Wish" follows and here Jimi's intricate guitar lines and the song's dynamic arrangement make this rock & roll ballad work better than it should. Mitchell's deft handling of the two time signatures and his jazzy inflections add an impressive dimension to the tune.

The clumsy "Little Miss Lover" has filler-culled-from-a-jam-session written all over it but it also has Hendrix's unmistakable, sexual predator charisma dripping freely from it so it's hard to ignore. Which brings you to the glorious finale, "Axis: Bold as Love." Jimi's R&B heritage dominates the early going on this gem but his one-of-a-kind guitar flashes that float like graceful ballerinas dancing across a stage make it shine like the sun. After Hendrix sings, bestowing all the colors of the rainbow with human traits, Mitchell's flanged drums lead you into a shimmering fantasy land of bright pastels streaked with fire as sounds pan from right to left and around your head constantly. Jimi cuts loose with guitar spasms that seem to come from another part of the universe where music is the only form of intelligent life that exists. It's a spectacularly passionate performance from one of the all-time masters.

It's important to note that the bulk of the album was recorded before "Are You Experienced" even hit the racks in America so the stressful pressure to get it done yesterday was less-than-conducive to achieving artistic perfection. They didn't even know if what they'd been producing would appeal to the fickle populace in the USA at all yet their label was already impatiently demanding that they finish their 2nd LP! In other words, go easy on this album and apply a generous amount of leniency when appraising its merits. It didn't jump up to #3 on the charts for nothing and, while it may be the plain Jane middle child of The Jimi Hendrix Experience, it contains multiple great moments to savor and is a must-have for every JH fan. 3.4 stars.

The second of the three classic Jimi Hendrix Experience albums is also the least interesting from the Proto-Prog view of reference. The album's production was rushed because of the band's contract obligation stating that they had to produce two albums in 1967, plus the pressure to follow up a successful debut album must have had a bearing on the matter as well. Still the band seemed playful enough in the studio and the short intro titled EXP is a good example of just that. It's great to see the members having a laugh although I can't really share their enthusiasm since what they offer can't be considered more than a novelty act that will always be overshadowed by the magnificent Purple Haze intro from the debut.

Axis: Bold As Love relies heavily on the blues rock sound with a few new sound effects and new instruments added into the mix which might justify the album's classic status to some. The few exception to the overall sound might give the impression of a much better release whenever any of them comes around. Still even the best moments like the hard rocking Spanish Castle Magic and the soft and melodic Little Wing can't match the tops that were reached on the other two Jimi Hendrix Experience albums.

The inner struggle within the band finally gave Noel Redding a chance to show his songwriting skills on She's So Fine. This only, once again, proves that the band was clutching at straws when compiling the material for this album. The only track that has received surprisingly little attention from the audience is the closing Bold As Love that starts off as another blues driven track but then completely changes direction towards the end with a melodic guitar outro that doesn't sound like anything that I've ever heard from Jimi Hendrix. If only the band could experiment more with this direction instead of filling the music with generic music of its time then I'm sure that Axis: Bold As Love would have been worth a few more stars on my part.

**** star songs: Spanish Castle Magic (3:03) Wait Until Tomorrow (3:03) Ain't No Telling (1:48) Little Wing (2:26) Castles Made Of Sand (2:49) One Rainy Wish (3:42) Bold As Love (4:11)

*** star songs: Up From The Skies (2:58) If 6 Was 9 (5:35) You Got Me Floatin' (2:48) She's So Fine (2:39) Little Miss Lover (2:21)

** star songs: EXP (1:55)

The followup to "Are You Experienced?" is actually a pretty good record, the problem is that everyone compared it to the debut and when you did that this album was sadly lacking. I'm sure most who were blown away by the raw power of Jimi's debut were (if anything) wanting more of the same. Blow our minds again Jimi was the mindset, more psychedelia, more aggression. Well this sophomore album turned out to be a very safe record unfortunately. Yes it's good, but again it really pales when compared to the debut. I guess the question could be asked "How do you follow up an album that changed the way people played guitar and thought about music ? I suppose it's not fair to even ask.

Some highlights for me are the first track "EXP" an interesting way to start the album. I like it. "Spanish Castle Magic" has some power to it and psychedlic lyrics. Guitar solo after 1 1/2 minutes. "Little Wing" is of course classic Hendrix. "If 6 Was 9" is a favourite. I like the passion and the psychedelic ending. "She's So Fine" is another favourite. I just like how 60's sounding it is and the drums are all over it. Of course Jimi's not singing and i've never been a huge fan of his vocals. 3 stars.

Wouldn't The Jimi Hendrix Experience have been a really cool instrumental jazz fusion band?

The Jimi Hendrix Experience - Axis: Bold As Love (1967)

Best Song: SPANISH CASTLE MAGIC, nothing else comes even close

Overall Rating: 9/15

After rocking our worlds with one of the heaviest debuts of his epoch, Jimi and pals decide that the world doesn't need two revolutionary 1960's proto-metal/psychedelic heavy rock albums, and decided to go out and invent new wave-trip-hop. Actually, he tries to blow our minds on a whole different level. Where his debut blew our minds with raw energy, sheer guitar ferocity, and songwriting that was actually befitting the music, Axis Bold As Love blows all our minds in the "Oh, he's experimenting, how cute" way. Though, when you observe the habits of most prominent late 1960's artists, this is eerily predictable. It's almost as if random psychedelic meandering was the commercial thing of the era. no, I'm absolutely sure of it. how else would Surrealistic Pillows ever gotten such a cult following?

That isn't to say he drops his inner fire for inner drug addiction. No, there's still that trademark bite to the majority of his material, and some tracks are just li'l monsters, like the album's real highlight, Spanish Castle Magic, which easily matches any of the best stuff from RUX. Ain't No Telling, Waiting For Tomorrow, and If 6 Was 9 all rock mightily, but none of it comes anywhere near the sheer magnitude of Purple Haze or Foxy Lady. Everything else is just your generic astral blues, distilled through his guitar gimmicks and studio tricks. Actually, I bet this whole album was just one big studio illusion. It did come out the same year as his debut, so maybe he recorded it with his mind, and if there's one place I never wanted to be, it was in Jimi Hendrix's mind, how crazy would that be?

Songs like Castles Made Of Sand and She's So Fine just plod on in their mushy, generic 1960's fuzz. I don't have anything against them, and all of it's professionally performed, but when Jimi Hendrix steps out from behind his smoldering guitar, his flaws are set out for everyone to easily see. As a singer, he's inadequate. His intonation is wrecked, he has basically only one style, he is forced into writing simple and typical vocal melodies, that he can't half belt, anyway. Speaking of melodies, his second primary fault is also his most damning. Jimi, as most folks will tell you, just didn't have the mind for real, deep, rich songwriting. Most of his material fell into one of two primary categories. You had the jaw-dropping rockers, and you had the mind-blowing bluesers. Sadly, Your jaw can only be dropped once, and your mind...well, I doubt any of his blues stuff could blow anyone away, these days. So, his music, the lesser known of it, wears painfully thin upon repeated listening, and this is what Axis Bold As Love is: A collection of Jimi Hendrix throw-away tunes. Nothing tops his debut in strength or force, and nothing really tops the psychedelia all the other hippie gurus were spitting at the time.

What, then, is my main beef with this record? It lack substance. Simply put, most of it is rather boring. Once you get grabbed for the first time, it never happens again. Still, as a look at a fantastically interesting musician of his era, Axis is an interesting purchase. It's far from worthless, and the Jimi Hendrix fans out there (Oh what an armada!) will certainly get a kick out of a different side to the man and his style, and when he does bring out the fury, oh boy, your socks will be thoroughly off. If only he'd been paired up with a more experienced (heh) songwriting team, or backed by a permanent, personal band, maybe then his music would have been shocking like it was, before.

To be honest, I have never been a big Jimi Hendrix fan. I always found him a tad overated, and never really made up for it with great songs. But I do love this album.

The cover enough is worth the price for me (I love Indian mythology).

This album does have some real underlooked and classic Jimi songs, and as an album, it just flows extremely well.

Their is some amazing songs on this, and the weaker material is still very strong.

With an added psychadellic factor to Jimi's guitar playing, it really is an achievment for him, and it made me respect more as a guitar player.

This album isn't the best produced eitherm with some aged flaws.

1. EXP- I'm guessing this is where Merzbow got his influence from. Very noisy and very well done. 9/10

2. Up From The Skies - Nice jazz influenced laidback song. Some nice guitar work. 8/10

3. Spanish Castle Magic - Great chorus and some kick ass riffs. Great vocals. 10/10

4. Wait Until Tomorrow - Love the chorus. Amazing guitar work. 10/10

5. Ain't No Telling - Quite funky. The backing vocals are quite weak though. 9/10

6. Little Wing - Just pure beauty. Amazing arrangement. Beautiful guitar work. The added glockenspiel counter melody is very nice as well, and quite unusual. 10/10

7. If 6 Was 9 - Love the lyrics. Great instrumental work. 9/10

8. You Got Me Floatin' - Great chorus. Very cathcy. Great production. 9/10

9. Castles Made Of Sand - Love the arrangement. The lyrics are also quite nice. Very soothing. 10/10

10. She's So Fine - Best song on the album, and Jimi had no real creative force behind it. My favourite Jimi Hendrix song ever. 10/10

11. One Rainy Wish - Quite dreamy with a nice arrangment. 9/10

12. Little Miss Lover - Wow, the drumming on this song is phenomanal. One of the first real uses of double bass pedals. Very funky. 10/10

13. Bold As Love - A nice end to the album. Love the improv bits. 10/10

CONCLUSION: Not perfect, but still an amazing album.

One of my fantasies as a hard core music fan was that Jimi Hendrix never died and he continued to make amazing music and produced some of the most phenomenal artist we would ever hear. While all of that is nothing but a series of "what could have been" scenarios it sure would have been an interesting ride if did happen that way. Instead we continue to get new music uncovered and re-masters of past classics from the Hendrix catalog. Who in the history of music did more in four years than Jimi? His impact was other worldly and the music he created was and still is an occurrence that is hard to fathom. He spent much more time in the studio creating than previously realized.

Recently Valleys of Neptune was released as a new album and to the surprise of no one it arrived in the top ten in album chart sales the first week of its release. The anticipation for anything released from the Hendrix estate is still an event that is celebrated and welcomed by millions of music fans.

With the ongoing reissues and reliving of The Jimi Hendrix Experience recordings there are several re-mastered and repackaged albums coming out including the amazing groundbreaking Axis: Bold As Love. This time out we get an extensive and detailed booklet with commentary and pictures that give you a glimpse of what was happening in 1967 for Jimi and his band. Not only do we get to hear the 13 awesome tracks in all their glory brought up to today's listening standards, we can enjoy a bonus DVD with Eddie Kramer (the original engineer for Hendrix) at the mixing board breaking down all the tracks and segmenting individual parts out to explain what the intent was and how it was all created by the brilliant mind of Hendrix. Kramer explains things like the odd squealing sound in "If 6 Was 9" was Jimi playing around with tape recorder. I always got a laugh the way this album started with "EXP" and Jimi's little nod to extraterrestrials; I am beginning to believe the man was not of this earth himself with the way he played guitar and the esoteric lyrics he came up with a lifetime ago now.

I have heard this album countless times and there are things I am noticing now that I never did before and not just the nuances and prolific licks of Hendrix but the rhythm section that helped to make Hendrix's music complete. Noel Redding (bass and backing vocals including lead vocals on "She's So Fine") with Mitch Mitchell (drums) meshed well with Jimi in the studio making music. Eventually that chemistry would disappear due to the many differences they all had. The trio managed to record some incredibly memorable psychedelic rock that influenced everyone from The Beatles to The Rolling Stones. This album's authority is still apparent today and the loss of such great musicians can never be rectified. The only way the music lives on is the continued revisiting and tweaking of the original master tapes and new listeners discovering it and realizing the true brilliance and progressive nature of the Hendrix catalog. The man invented progressive rock as a natural evolution with each studio session and this album is when it all started.

I have actually been listening to this more than the new album and have found myself in a constant state of fascination with the clarity of this re-master. Axis: Bold As Love always sounded great to me but now its stands alone in both sound and quality of musicianship like it never has before thanks to this reissue.

This recording has stood the test of time very well and I have no doubt that it will continue to do so.

Key Tracks: Spanish Castle Magic, Little Wing, Bold As Love

Of the three albums the Jimi Hendrix Experience did, this one seems a bit overlooked compared to Are You Experienced and Electric Ladyland, but you know what, I really have a hard time saying which of the three are the best. For some strange reason, I didn't buy his albums until recently, maybe some of the songs I've heard too much on the radio, but I started getting more and more curious of the stuff you don't hear on the radio. Axis: Bold as Love is the second album, with Indian artwork. While Jimi himself liked the cover, it wasn't exactly what he had in mind, the Indian he was thinking of is Native American, not Hindu, as Hendrix was part Cherokee (from his grandmother's side). To me, I believe this album needs to be just as recognized as the other two. "EXP" is a ridiculous opening cut with Mitch Mitchell acting like a radio announcer debunking flying saucers, then tons of guitar distortion and feedback. The first real song is "Up from the Skies", it's a great mellow piece, with lots of wah-wah guitar. "Spanish Castle Magic" is more hard rocking and could have easily fit on Are You Experienced? "Waiting For Tomorrow" is nothing short of incredible, I liked many of the high pitched vocals included. "Little Wing" has been covered by many people, including Eric Clapton, Stevie Ray Vaughan (in instrumental form) and Sting. "If 6 Was 9" is familiar to anyone who seen Easy Rider, but the most exciting part is the part you don't hear on the movie, where Hendrix gets more experimental, going after the conservative establishment and letting his freak flag fly high. "Castles Made of Sand" is a rather mellow piece, and is probably the most recognized song on the album. Noel Redding gives us "She's So Fine", and like "Little Miss Strange" from Electric Ladyland, is the least Hendrix-like piece on the album. No surprise, it's not Hendrix's song, so it has a much more 1967 pop/psychedelic feel to it.

I don't think I can really add on what everyone else says about the sheer groundbreaking innovation of Hendrix and how inspired generations of hard rock, heavy metal, and blues guitarists, even Krautrock guitarists (there's no doubt that Guru Guru's Ax Genrich, as well as Manuel Göttsching had heard their fair share of Hendrix). What I can easily say is how well his music stands up to this day and don't sound dated (minus the Noel Redding composition). This was certainly music that blew the Lemon Pipers and the Strawberry Alarm Clock right out of the water. While those groups have became psychedelic pop curiosities of a bygone era, Jimi Henrix is still fondly remembered today and have new admirers to this day.

Axis: Bold of Love needs to be placed as one of the all-time classic rock albums with Are You Experienced? and Electric Ladyland. You can't go wrong with this album!

Rush-recorded to fulfil contractural commitments, the second album by the Experience remains a credible and respectable addition to their discography. Spanish Castle Magic, Wait Until Tomorrow and Ain't No Telling are three of the Experience's best fast tracks lined up one after the other, before the album slows up with the soft lament of Little Wing offering a little calm before the crunchy psych-blues of If 6 Was 9.

Side Two is just as strong. Castles Made of Sand is one of the saddest and most haunting songs Hendrix would ever compose, whilst Bold as Love is a fine, fine album closer. Noel Redding even gets a chance to sing lead on his own composition, She's So Fine, which takes a typical 60s pop lyric and has the Experience absolutely go to town on it in one of the heaviest pure love songs of the 60s.

What's amazing about Hendrix's music is how complex it manages to be whilst, at the same time, so incredibly loud and energetic - it's proof that you can play prog without toning down the rock.

Rating: 10/10

First of all, Hendrix was a great, talented, musician.

Of course he was a gifted and tremendous guitar player too.

But he was a music researcher that actually used the guitar -exploding almost every aspect of it- as the main tool for his purposes.

And the final proof of that is the brighting, sparkling "Axis: bold as love".

An exciting, genial, full of ideas craft work document.

If "Are you experienced?" was mostly based on interpretation, "Axis" kept that electrifying side but also added incredible songwriting skills to it.

Every song here -from the mind blowing beginning with "EXP" and a perfectly accurate personification by Hendrix playing an alien and his immortal Fender simulating a spaceship take off going amazingly from channel left to right, to the glorious end of the terrificly melodic "Bold as love"- is undeniably a stand out and it wouldn't be necessary to point each of them, but it really gets unfair not to.

It is still so inspiring and profound every time "Little wing" fills the air... its beauty conjugated perfectly to a flawless harmony composition and one splendid Hendrix as minimum: the several chord blocks placed one above another sounds pretty much as a whole symphonic orchestra intro.

His jazz crossings on "Up from the sky" in which bass delivers an irresistible groove; the upright hard rock that falls like a thunder over the incredible riff of "Spanish castle magic" or brings superb rawness on the hard rock-pro punk "Ain't no telling" and definitely reaches a peak of ambition and expanding on "If 6 was 9".

Rock 'n roll is firmly present.

Hendrix also gives himself space for humor and accurately makes a crossover -as if he was a precocious Frank Zappa- between mood and melody on "Wait until tomorrow", "You got me flowing" and the festive "She's so fine".

To finish up fairly, "One rainy wish" and "Little miss lover" are NOT by any means minor tracks: enchanting melody, excellent song build-up and -as in the whole album- expertly accomplished songwriting.

In fact it still sounds futuristic.

"Axis" is the ultimate and most hallucinating trip Hendrix has ever made: a visionary and also revolutionary craftsman mounted on his Fender riding through a cosmical voyage.

Actually if you go and play this music RIGHT NOW you may possibly feel something like that... or at least it will blow your mind just like if it was recorded yesterday.

Jimi and his Experience created this classic only a few months after the landmark Are You Experienced? was released. It has definitely stood the test of time very well. The sound quality in the songs amazes to this day. There are touches on different styles again, from the wah- wah drenched jazzy "Up From the Skies", to hard-rock with "Spanish Castle Magic", soul with "Wait Until tomorrow" and even funk on "Little Miss Lover". Favourites though include "Ain't no Telling" which is a fast rocker. It isn't even two minutes long and it still has more twists than you can imagine. And the classic ballad "Little Wing" has one of the most recognizable intros ever. Wonderful and inspirational. You should also hear Stevie Ray Vaughan's version as well. "Castles Made of Sand" is also a rather beautiful, simple little song about how plans don't always work out and how sometimes it's for the best. I also love "Bold as Love", the majestic title track and album finale about someone whose feelings are in conflict with one another, yet it is love that prevails over all. Just ask the Axis... grreat album with plenty of spectacular work from such a legendary band! Blinding multi-tracking and guitar tricks, lovely lyrics, and who couldn't fall in love with drummer extraordinaire Mitch Mitchell on any of the group's releases? Highly recommended.

If Jimi Hendrix outlined his scopes in his first effort; here he deepens and broadens them into this "Axis Bold as Love" second album project ; of a short "authorized" studio discography of 3 . He had the certainty that the future for his music (and music in general) was the route of "funk" (which after all; in those days was the best representation of the "black" culture; which of course was a symptom of the "times" 1968; the year of the students movement uprising world-wide)... Well enough history for today. Thanks to every deity that appears on the fantastic "art-cover"; this just happens twice (funk oriented songs). The rest is Hendrix following his intuition and natural genuine talent for both composition and lyrics. It is a perfect collection of "small-wonders" and "gems". It is quiet impossible; in my opinion to skip this (or any of his 3) albums; if you want to testify the origins of a lot of "copied by 1000s and matched by few guitar-tricks; that made; even the "guitar-Gods" sigh when exposed. This is just for you!.. Here the "Experience" searches further in the tenor of "3th Stone from the Sun" composition from the first record, BUT here every route is taken; experimental founded songs, transfixed with great vision and clear song-writing. With humour when required and sharp wits if the case. The music goes from ethereal guitar compositions to Prog-Rock foundations; from the guy who painted the lines and established the dots of this foundations; so it is quiet a thrill! ...If complex guitar structures achieved with sheer talent; surrounded by a not less talented rhythm section (Mitch Mitchell is my all time favorite drummer), this could be something you should not let pass by.*****5 "Blow my Mind" PA stars.

Axis: Bold as Love is a feedback filled collection of Hendrix and the times he was playing in. The fuzzy distortion, interesting combination of bluesy and psychedelic sounds, distinct vocals, and trademark guitar sound please throughout.

It's genuinely hard to find anything to complain about from a genuinely iconic musician's legacy, yet despite this, I don't think that there's enough depth here that grabbed me beyond the casual listen. Every one has heard tracks like "If 6 was 9" and "Little Wing", so there's no surprise there, but the other songs come across as filler and jams. Maybe it's because I've heard the highlights of this album so many times on Jimi's "Greatest Hits". The few psychedelic pop songs leave me ambivalent, but luckily the warm sound of Jimi's R&B guitar outnumber those songs 2:1, and the hits of this album are legendary.

So, a solid album that will probably grab some more than others, but is undeniably entertaining regardless.

Songwriting: 3 - Instrumental Performances: 4 - Lyrics/Vocals: 3 - Style/Emotion/Replay: 3

I've always had a sweet spot for this classic among classics. It's the second Hendrix LP and seems overshadowed by its brilliant follower "Electric ladyland". I find in this album a joyfullness and a jazzyness quite unique in Hendrix carrer. After "Exp", a funny experimental noisy opener, "Up from the skies" is a very uplifting jazzy tune, thanks to the special work on drums. The floating wha wha is delicious and Jimi's singing is mellow. Followed by the "hard" rocking "Spanish castles magic" until we get to "Wait until tommorow", another highlight, a funky tune with inspired lyrics that tell a little story. "Ain't no telling" is short but intense. "Little wing" is a masterpiece, only drawback is the duration and the shortened ending guitar solo -actually several guitars mixed together- (for a slightly longer and excellent version, check "Hendrix In the west" live album). "You got me floatin'" is another uplifting, dynamic tune. "Castles made of sand" is really a masterpiece featuring reversed guitars effets, a funky rhythmic, both cool and psychedelic, very far from the usual Hendrix noisy caricature playing purple Haze in concert. Hendrix was not only a virtuoso but also a great arranger and one of the best lyricists ever. "She's so fine" is a rockier tune, with Mitch Mitchell and Noel Redding doing the chorus. "One rainy wish" is a wonderful soft tune which has an oniric and peaceful quality. "Little miss lover" is maybe the "harder" tune along with "Spanish castles magic". "Bold as love" ends the record beautifully with its lyric and intense mood and finishes by a blazing solo.. A masterpiece!

At the beginning of 1966, JIMI HENDRIX was struggling to even make minimum wage playing R&B covers. By the end of 1966, he had finished recording his first album "Are You Experienced?" and released it to great success as THE JIMI HENDRIX EXPERIENCE band giving the rock world a must needed kick in the arse. By the beginning of 1967, the band was famous worldwide and penuriousness was replaced by every pressure known to the successful musician and piled upon the trio due to contractual obligations, thus a second album was demanded to be released within the same year of 1967. Sooooo THE EXPERIENCE rushed into the studio and recorded their second album AXIS: BOLD AS LOVE which came out in December, 1967 in the UK but was held back in the US because it was feared it would interfere with sales of the first album, so it was released in May of 1968. Typical record company malarky of the day!

AXIS: BOLD AS LOVE basically continues offering the same psychedelic, energetic and innovative blues rock concoctions that HENDRIX was so successful in constructing on album number one with his elegant display of melodic expansion in the most creative ways. The fact that this band so deftly and proficiently pumped out a majorly spectacular array of brilliant songs is a testament to the power of JIMI HENDRIX and explains how he was able to record decades worth of music in a very short time span when new material is still being released almost fifty years after his untimely passing. The tracks on this album were done with a healthy dose of studio recording techniques of the day and as a result most were never performed in a live setting with the exception of "Spanish Castle Magic" and "Little Wing" but THE EXPERIENCE successfully conjured up a brilliant followup to their spectacular ground breaking debut with grace.

Neck in neck with The Beatles in innovating rock'n'roll, AXIS: BOLD AS LOVE begins with the lysergic mind expansive trip of "EXP" which takes the art of microphone and harmonic feedback to new extreme levels for the day and simulates a strange close encounter of the third kind with extraterrestrial contact. After this strange album introduction, we get some more familiar HENDRIX action with a psychedelic funk rock narration of concerned extraterrestrial life returning to the Earth concerned of the abuses of the top dog species, namely, homo sapiens and how they are degrading the ecosystems upon which their lives are dependent. HENDRIX was totally in tune with the ecological issues plaguing humankind and was ahead of the rest of the world in adapting these issues to music. That would have made a great concept album actually but the album continues on a track by track basis with each song having its own theme and meaning.

Brilliantly THE EXPERIENCE eschews AXIS: from being a clone of "Are You??" Instead it creates a somewhat similar but more nonchalant way of incorporating the recent upgrades in the rock universe with the usual psychedelic rock guitar riffage of HENDRIX himself with the jazz inspired drum workouts of Mitch Mithcell while the bass guitars of Noel Redding provide the most stable and grounding attributes of the music with the occasional jazz inspired methods as well. The album also adds lots of new instruments to the mix adding a more diverse feel from the debut. HENDRIX contributes piano and recorder, Mitchell adds some glockenspiel and Redding offers his best foot stomping percussion. AXIS: also has the best album cover of all THE EXPERIENCE years releases!

THE JIMI HENDRIX EXPERIENCE is certainly an archival type of band beyond most our musical experiences unless you are well into you 60s at this point. I did not start out loving this album by any means. In fact i always thought HENDRIX was fairly boring! However, there is something about these albums including this second one that has the power to burrow into the future and into my DNA that has infected me with admiration. True this is not technically as adept as what has come to develop over the decades that follow, but this was truly innovative at the time and if the listener simply resonates with the music, it will surely reveal its time period prowess and charm with merely a few attentive and open-minded listens. I now regard this album as much as a brilliant masterpiece as the debut. The musical elements sewn together with the concepts are outstanding and considering this was a trio makes it all the more impressive.

Songwriting, songwriting, and more songwriting: that is what separates Axis from its predecessor Are You Experienced. On Axis, Jimi seems to actually put thought into the music being committed to tape. And the results are simply revolutionary. Take "Spanish Castle Magic" for instance. The core of this song is still blues- based riffing. But thanks to interesting supplemental chords, syncopated drumming, and a dose of Hendrix magic, the song is a hard rock trip unlike anything heard before.

The record is further bolstered by a legendary rhythm guitar performance by Hendrix. Though usually known for his bombastic soloing, Hendrix's rhythm guitar work on tracks like "Little Wing," "Bold as Love, " and "Castles Made of Sand" is nothing short of masterful.