While their top-tier British peers were progressing emphatically by the spring of 1966, The Animals were perfectly happy to continue on as if it were still 1964, doing what they always did best: putting their Newcastle stamp on American blues, soul, R&B, and tin pan alley tunes. "Shapes of Things","19th Nervous Breakdown", "See My Friends", "Substitute", and "Nowhere Man" were not enough to throw them off course. So May 1966's Animalisms was yet another platter of mostly other people's material, the two exceptions being Eric Burdon and new keyboardist Dave Rowberry's "You're on My Mind" and "She'll Return It" (I refuse to acknowledge the lame minute of clapping credited to Rowberry alone...whoops!).
It's generally considered blasphemous to prefer an American rejiggering to the pure British original, but adding sharp singles such as "Don't Bring Me Down" and "Inside-Looking Out", as well as the stand-out original "Cheating", to the US version released as Animalization really improves the album. Still Animalisms is not without its charms, so it's cool that Secret Records in the UK is reissuing the pure British original on red vinyl. That vinyl can be a bit noisy, which is less cool, but it's nice and flat, which is more cool.
Although the sleeve reads "stereo" this record sounds mono to me. If it's fake stereo, it's the tightest fake stereo I've ever heard. However, it is completely drenched in reverb that is not present on the mono Animalization, which is the preferable choice as far as I'm concerned. The opackaging is nice, with printed inners featuring liner notes and photos.
