WAR — Why Can't We Be Friends? (review)

WAR — Why Can't We Be Friends? album cover Album · 1975 · Latin Rock/Soul Buy this album from MMA partners
3/5 ·
Sean Trane
Although War’s previous DTW was a bit less successful than the anterior TWiaG and ADM, it still held up fine. In some ways, DTW is a musically a superior album (IMHO), Why Cant’t We Be Friends will be another immense commercial success as two huge hit came out of it: the title track and the very unusual Low Rider

The opening side is made of shorter tracks bar Leroy’s medley (the booklet speaks of an ambitious mini-suite) the first two of them are radio-friendly soul-ish-funk pieces that go relatively unnoticed. This is hardly the case for the wild Heartbeat happy jump-on-the-funkwagon. The Leroy’s Latin Lament ambitiously described as a “mini-suite” is another finely (over?) arranged track, even if it is a soul meets Santana’s Treat on the debut album of the latter, mostly due to the bluesy piano.

The flipside opens on the instrumental Smile Happy and is a joyous Carribean-tinged piece that is dominated by the jazzy sax. Originally intended to be the album’s title, this song still has the artwork to claim as its own. After an unremarkable So ballad, comes the superb Low Rider with its insidious riff made of repeated notes (ostinato) once ascending, next descending and the superb bass voice of Charlie Miller (the owner of the Low Rider Chevy 48). Absolutely not complex, but one had to think about this, Low Rider is impossible not to like, but one can overdose on repeated listens. Mazlatan is a jazzier ballad than So but I’ll prefer Smile Happy, while the title tracks closes another artistic deception, but it was saving the album’s commercial success as it was released as an advanced single that shot through the charts, but nothing for the proghead.

Clearly coming after a (relative) dry spell, Friends renewed with commercial success, but artistically speaking (and especially for progheads), the group was on a slow but unstoppable slide, IMHO. Still worth putting your ears upon it for Heartbeat, Smile Happy and Low Rider, if you don’t already know the latter.
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