There are many examples of albums, now considered “classic” and “seminal”, that were poorly-received or even ignored in their day. But how many of those examples represent a genre-busting, hit-making artist’s fourth album? And how many of those would eventually be considered said artist’s greatest work?
Released in November 1970, Twelve Dreams Of Dr Sardonicus is the album that should finally have catapulted Spirit into the big time. Unfortunately, it hit the street just as internal disagreements and a contentious label change were splitting the band into an eventual three separate entities. So everything stopped just as Spirit's greatest collection of songs burrowed its way out into the world. A somewhat claustrophobic mastering job probably didn’t help either. It served the material well, but wasn’t particularly radiofriendly.
Well, here you have the full original album again. Rockers like ‘Morning Will Come’ and ‘Mr Skin’ leap out of the speakers the way they should. Jay Ferguson’s doomy ‘When I Touch You’ has a proper skull-crushing intensity. The pastoral ‘Nature’s Way’ and ‘Why Can’t I Be Free’ are out in the open air rather than in the basement somewhere, and even John Locke’s jazzy ‘Space Child’ is woven into the proceedings in a seamless manner, much unlike the sore-thumb treatment his works on the group’s earlier LPs had received.
The band's lowest charting album to that point, it peaked at #63 on the Billboard 200 in February 1971, spending only fourteen weeks on the chart. However, it sold well as a catalog item and became the band's only album to ultimately attain a RIAA gold certification in the U.S., achieving that status in 1976.
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