Animal Tracks – THE ANIMALS****

Mess Around/How You’ve Changed/Hallelujah I Love Her So/I Believe To My Soul/Worried Life Blues/Roberta/I Ain’t Got You/Bright Lights Big City/Let The Good Times Roll/For Miss Caulker/Roadrunner

The Geordie blues group The Animals second UK album Animal Tracks was, like its predecessor, heavily R & B influenced. This was their last album release to include organist Alan Price. (UK:6)

"The Animals' best album. The songs are much better than those on the first one and are much better performed."

"Where The Animals score over many British groups of the sixties, is in the dual strength of Eric Burden’s powerful, yet soulful voice, and Alan Price’s flourishing keyboard playing."

"The quality of the songs is bound to be mixed; yet this is still the original Animals in their prime, and the tunes are much more often solid than not."

"Listening to this album, one notices that as a straightforward British R & B band, The Animals were among the more authentic, because of their preference for the tempos preferred by many of great American blues performers (listen to such tracks as For Miss Caulker and I Believe To My Soul). But like such contemporaries as The Rolling Stones and The Yardbirds, they could rock out with the best of them (listen to Around & Around and Roadrunner). A must have for anyone who loves British R & B and/or happens to be a fan of The Animals."

"A look at the track list reveals a repertoire common to most bands of the genre in that era. Only two of the songs are original. Elsewhere, Chuck Berry, John Lee Hooker, Ray Charles and Fats Domino are all well-represented. However familiar the material might be, The Animals excel in their performance of it."

"Like some other groups, The Animals took originals by the likes of John Lee Hooker and Chuck Berry and amped them up to deliver songs of a strong, raw emotional content backed by deep bass chords and a fervent lead guitar/vocal combination."

"It’s a pity that The Animals couldn’t produce many self-penned songs because they had the credentials to be as good as anyone else out there."