I don’t rightly know how to describe this album, or much of Exuma’s music, for that matter. What I do know is, his real name was Macfarlane Gregory Anthony Mackey – quite a mouthful – and after quite a bit of time spent plying his craft in New York City in the 60’s he formed a rather large band and released a series of cult albums which underwent major label treatment in the 1970’s. The genre term is junkanoo, but it really shouldn’t make much of a difference, because Exuma and friends’ express goal here is to take the bush medicine/religion that he grew up with and set it to a musical back drop. Often times, it is a rough and borderline grotesque backdrop – what with zombies and people rising from graves with fire in their eyes – but it’s a backdrop all the same, and one that can be just as captivating in its’ own off-beat manner. The most upbeat track is the opener, “Exuma, the Obeah Man”, which kicks off with creepy coyote howls and is propelled along with Exuma’s excited acoustic guitar strums and exclamations about being birthed by lightning bolts. But for me, the real trick of the album are droning seance/chant tracks like “Dambala”, “You Don’t Know What’s Going On”, and “The Vision” which feel inevitable.

Very much a transitional record, even though in many places it sounds much like the records that preceded it. It’s loud, gruff, and angry – like a lot of other acts from 1970 – but one gets the feeling it’s all too quickly burning into oblivion. The last album the band recorded before the death of guitarist Alan “Blind Owl” Wilson, and his contributions are notable here. Ironically, the hit single from the album was the only one sung by Bob Hite (“Let’s Work Together”).

The second Bloodrock record in their post-progressive phase (and that's debatable) is something else altogether - a real serious move away from the original sound - unlike the previous album, where there were still some links. One other thing worth mentioning is the cover, which, like the last album, completely reflects the band's move to art rock in a big way. I can only imagine the look on the average record buyer's face back in the day, though, when confronted with such an image, and even now, have to admit gives me a feeling of a group that was a little too above it all for its' own good.

For real, any talk of comeback as it relates to Aerosmith – and that’s debatable, to my ears - starts and ends with the remake of "Walk This Way". If we don't want to do that, then Done With Mirrors is a decent hard rock album for a heck of a lot of other lesser bands in this world. For Aerosmith, who once scaled the highest of the highs (both literal and figurative), this is what it had come to - a struggle to hang on for relevancy. Throw out a dark, grumbly throwback which scrapes the nether regions of FM rock radio ("Shela") that pleases the old-time fans, re-use some old Joe Perry stuff ("Let the Music Do the Talking"), and everywhere else do just enough to keep everyone wondering - is the revival still within reach? Or was this on life support, and was it time to pull the plug?

This is true to the spirit of the 70's records, even though there are a few nods to the 80's here and there, like the goofy synth lead in to "Lightning Strikes". The band is still on the downside from its' drug and concert debacles and now under the very unsteady control of Tyler, yet the album is not even close to being a failure. The strangest tangent may be the whole "Joanie's Butterfly" deal, and actually, the only part that really bothers me is the "Prelude", where I never can understand Tyler's electronically-treated spoken-word bit, which is puzzling. "Butterfly" itself is an OK, art-rock type-of song which reminds me of a more light-hearted version of "Kings and Queens", but on this record, feels a bit out of place. It definitely stretches for something far out of the normal reach of the content of this album, which is - the gutter. And that, to me, is something that should really interest the hardcore fan which got into the band in the first place. Tracks like "Jailbait", "Jig Is Up", and "Bolivian Ragamuffin" are right in that rough house, first or second album ball park, but with noticeable swaths of vulnerability thrown in. "Bitch's Brew", for me, is the pick, which could have come straight out of the Toys in the Attic days, especially the spaced-out, quivering-on-the-void mid-section. Just an amazing throwback. "Push Comes to Shove", as well, shares a lot of the strange mood that an older track like "Pandora's Box" had going for it. The drawback here is, at this low point, that is about all the band had going for them - recall the old days by piling on the excess, money, and more drugs than you can ever imagine. Apparently, 3 years and around $1.5 million were spent eking out the album which took some 20 years to garner a gold record. So, I guess the moral is - you win some and you lose some?