The group's second and, for all intents and purposes, last full album was recorded while
Them was in a state of imminent collapse. To this day, nobody knows who played on the album, other than
Van Morrison and bassist
Alan Henderson, though it is probable that
Jimmy Page was seldom very far away when
Them was recording. The 16 songs here are a little less focused than the first LP. The material was cut under siege conditions, with a constantly shifting lineup and a grueling tour schedule; essentially, there was no "group" to provide focus to the sound, only
Morrison's voice, so the material bounces from a surprisingly restrained "I Put a Spell on You" to the garage-punkoid "I Can Only Give You Everything." Folk-rock rears its head not only on the moody cover of
Dylan's "It's All Over Now, Baby Blue" but also the
Morrison-authored "My Lonely Sad Eyes," but the main thrust is soul, which
Morrison oozes everywhere -- while there's some filler, his is a voice that could easily have knocked
Mick Jagger or
Eric Burdon off their respective perches.