Word: cactuses
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...increasingly mysterious and alarming states of "non-ordinary reality" through the systematic use of three hallucinogenic plants: peyote, Jimson weed and psilocybe mushrooms. Thus far the outcome sounds predictable: student meets guru, blows mind, drops out and fries his brain cells with the Flesh of the Gods beneath a cactus. Not so: the young anthropologist turns out to be a man of tenacious curiosity. His meeting with Don Juan now seems one of the most fortunate literary encounters since Boswell was introduced to Dr. Johnson...
...have been used ritually in South America for more than 2,000 years. The visions they induce are socially shared and, it seems, consistent with one another. That is the crucial difference. A Huichol Indian, for instance, goes to the peyote ceremony knowing that his encounter with the sacred cactus will confirm his tribal consciousness, its myths and traditional units of experience...
...other tracks worth mentioning are a tremendously powerful version of Howlin' Wolf's "Evil" and "Mean Night in Cleveland", a number based on an old blues riff. Given the strength of these two cuts, both of which are excellent. Cactus might well consider changing directions (or is it assume a direction) and try to bring blues rock back into popularity...
...result of this meeting of the superstars of the control room is that Restrictions is far better than anything Cactus has done to date, yet it falls short of what other groups like the Faces or Humble Pie are doing these days. The album is good; it's just not great. Restrictions' most glaring weakness is a lack of good original material. The album is hopelessly flawed by such inane cuts as "Token Chokin" and "Alaska," with each of the members of the band having a finger in the awful...
...when Cactus settled down and writes a good song, oh what a monster! Witness "Restrictions," the title cut and perhaps the best song recorded by an American group this year. Reminiscent of something the Vanilla Fudge at their faster (and better) moments might have done, "Restrictions" is full of tight harmonies, clever and absorbing changes in rhythm and structure, and strong instrumentation. The song barrels along, never letting up for over six minutes, and when it's all over you wonder if you haven't been run over by the Long Island Railroad...