Mind Transplant

In leading one of the most bewilderingly intense, absolutely off-the-chain albums ever released on Blue Note, fusion drummer Alphonse Mouzon seemed to go into some kind of heavy metal fugue state with Mind Transplant. Playing like a John Bonham solo flipped from 33⅓ to 45, Mouzon hammered down the kind of proto-blast beats you’d have to wait for another five years just to hear some other band pick up on, and that band would probably have to be Motörhead. When they turn the tempo down, things can get good-naturedly sleazy — the wah-wah funk of “Snow Bound” and the bluesy strut “Happiness Is Loving You” are as unabashedly over-the-top as the outfits Mouzon rocks on the cover. But when loud and fast rules the day, especially when Tommy Bolin, Lee Ritenour, and Jay Graydon conjure up some 100-proof guitar histrionics, cuts like “Ascorbic Acid,” “Nitroglycerin,” and “Carbon Dioxide” will rearrange your chemistry with mutagenic power.