White Light/White Heat – THE VELVET UNDERGROUND**

White Light-White Heat/The Gift/Lady Godiva’s Operation/Here She Comes Now/I Heard Her Call My Name/ Sister Ray

The Velvet Underground's follow up album, White Light/White Heat, generated much less critical praise than the debut, mainly due to the extended electronic jamming tracks. (US:199)

"Is White Light a great classic, an unjustly lost gem, or is it just a collection of sloppy, pathetic, feedback-drenched 'jams'?"

"Once you tame this wild, noisy, amphetamine-fuelled, out-of-control beast of an album, it will be your best friend for a lifetime. Few albums are as off-putting on initial hearing; fewer still will reward you more after hundreds of spins. Inexplicably, its chaos, noise, and howling confusion will become comforting. But it takes awhile."

"I had to use a lot of will power to get through the album. It was loud, distorted, experimental, industrial-sounding rather than musical. I had to check at first to make sure something wasn't wrong with my sound system. In a word - horrible."

"A fair warning, White Light/White Heat is hard to listen to. This is due to the fact that longest pieces here, The Gift and Sister Ray sound like mindless noise rock jam sessions with spoken word poetry added almost as an afterthought."

"There is rhythm, primitive rhythm, mad guitars, and raw with the power of a juggernaut. The drums are insane and are the sound of hate beating against your door with the intensity of all machine guns fired in the Second World War. It's the sound of angst, genuine angst, genuine mortal fear."

"White Light/White Heat is one of the most cathartic musical experiences I've ever touched upon. The razor-sharp/wrecking ball guitar tones throughout are definitely the highlights, as well as the provocative lyrics."

"This album is very noisy and musically I don't think it works. It sounds more like a high school garage rock band just starting out."

"Most atonal music does not impress anyone beyond the first few listens, but this album stays with you. Perhaps the secret is in the amount of energy pushed into the atonality, the complete belief with which the band abandons tradition."

"It's quite an inaccessible album, most definitely a hard one to get into, but once you get it, it really is brilliant."