Sense memory is a powerful thing. Once you've associated a perfume with an old girlfriend, it's hard not to remember the relationship when you catch the scent of her brand while walking past a stranger in the mall. Or try drinking ginger ale and seeing how long you can go before your mind conjures up images of staying home from school with a stomach bug, watching The Price Is Right. Music is subject to the same phenomenon. Whenever I hear Cream, I think back to being nine years old and seeing the commercial for Freedom Rock, a collection of songs from the '60s and '70s. In the ad, which my neighborhood friends and I quoted ad infinitum, a couple of pre-fab hippies are lounging next to their VW Minibus. The familiar opening strains of "Layla" erupt from their stereo prompting one to ask the other, "Hey, man, is that Freedom Rock?" It's a fun, silly, cheap commercial. The kind that used to insist on "No CODs." Cream's contribution to the set was "White Room," which doesn't appear on Disraeli Gears, but "Sunshine of Your Love" does. That unmistakable opening riff - on par with those that kick off "Satisfaction" or "Smoke on the Water" - links this album inextricably to 1967. Being able to capture the zeitgeist in just a few bars is impressive, but it's also a double-edged sword. On the one hand, you've created a monolith for the ages. Current and future generations yearning to learn about nascent acid rock will find Disraeli Gears to be required listening. On the other hand, your monument is a tribute to Ozymandias, a statue that began its long, slow, crumbling decline the moment it was erected. But it's not all doom and gloom and several of these songs hold up very well. Cream sound great when they're not trying to filter their beloved blues through too many layers of psychedelia. Or when they're not trying to commune too closely with the muses as they do on "Tales of Brave Ulysses," which sounds like their Homeric homage to Dylan's "It's Alright, Ma (I'm Only Bleeding)." They explore a variety of guitar textures as the songs warble, peal, drone, and jag. However, some of the other instruments - particularly the keyboards - get buried too deep in the mix and render them irrelevant. Likewise, many of the vocals suffer from an almost polite formality (read: British) that sublimates their power and contrasts sharply with the imagination of the lyrics. You can get away with lines like "Outside my window is a tree / There only for me" from "World of Pain," but only if you loosen it up a little. And, in general, though it will tip my hand and betray my preferences to say so, they're at their rootsy best at the beginning and the end, with "Strange Brew" and "Take It Back," respectively. These songs have a loose, earthy quality truly deserving of the name "freedom rock." "Well, turn it up, man!" Grade: B-
