Paul Revere & The Raiders - Midnight Ride (1966), 4/10

With all five members contributing to songwriting, it is no wonder Midnight Ride is incredibly inconsistent and confusingly incoherent at times. The singles “Kicks” and “I’m Not Your Stepping Stone” along with the first track on the second side “All I Really Need Is You” are the strongest efforts while the rest range from decent rock songs to absolutely awful love ballads. The closer “Melody for an Unknown Girl” is obviously the worst of these misguided compositions, revealing part of the band’s immaturity in an awkwardly tangible way. There are some decent moments of interest when they break this odd mold, particularly when they bring uncommon sounds into the mix. Still, the conflict within the band can be heard through the album’s inharmonious sound and songwriting style, practically confirmed by Drake Levin’s departure just after the release of the album. The highs here are immediately and consistently followed by lows, the worst being the closer that leaves an awful lingering feeling, but there are easily four or five tracks in an already very short record that should have been scrapped or replaced. The general ethos and feeling behind the record is straightforward love songs decorated with generic emerging rock tropes becoming popular during this time. The saving grace of the stronger songs is typically a combination of group songwriting along with Mark’s vocals and Levin’s guitar picking up the slack. A successful record for its passable singles but one of the less interesting successful albums of the mid-sixties.