When a debut album is as lauded and as scattered as The Doors’, there’s usually a couple of misfires before they find their niche and release another great record. The Doors not only managed to release a sophomore record that overshadowed its predecessor, but they did so within the same calendar year. And to tell the truth, Strange Days has always been my favorite Doors record.

It wisely skips over the debut’s lighter moments and indulges in heavier fare. Blues rock is traded for psychedelia and further explorations through their fascinations with jazz. Krieger and Manzarek complement eachother more fully than ever, and John Densmore’s drumming is on top of it. Morrison takes a less-overbearing approach to his frontmanship refusing to even appear on the cover photo. But when needed, he howls more wildly and carnally than he did anywhere on their self titled record. The eleven minute closer, When The Music’s Over is a few shades more apocalyptic than The End, with Kreiger doing his best Sterling Morrison impression before anyone would have understood that reference and Manzarek and Densmore laying the softest, smoothest, jazziest jam session under Jim Morrison’s poetry section they ever had, exploding with the primal shout “We want the world and we want it now!”