Let's Ride: 20 Popsike Excursions from the UK & (CD)

Psychic Circle, that specialist in anthologies of rarely or never compiled vintage beat/mod/psych/prog from Britain and the Continent, is back again with this collection of 20 such items from 1966-1972 that sit on the fence between pop and psychedelia. Just one of these artists (Unit 4+2) had a hit, and even their contribution finds them greatly changed from their "Concrete and Clay" days. Such a CD (actually the third volume of the label's Fairytales Can Come True series) is much more for genre specialists than those looking for the best, or even some of the better, rare material in the style. Still, if you have a taste for pop-psych that tends to be on the sweeter side of that two-sided coin, this will probably have something you like, depending on your particular enthusiasms. The Chanters' "Mississippi Paddleboat," which sounds like a great girl group song dragged into the late-'60s British mod-pop era, is really the only thing here that sounds like maybe it should have been a hit. Much of the rest is pretty average, and sometimes pretty derivative, with My Kind of People's "Nobody Knows Why the Butterfly Died" and White Lining's "Back in the Sun" both drawing a lot from the early Procol Harum approach. Other cuts have their moments, even if some of them don't fall too comfortably into the "popsike" category: Hubert Thomas Valverde & the HTs' "We Don't Care" almost has a pre-Electric Light Orchestra sound, Graham Bonney's "Mixed Up Baby Girl" is a bit like a more rock-oriented Tom Jones, and Katch 22's 1968 45 "Don't Bother" has a much heavier Merseybeat flavor than its relatively late release date would indicate. As a point of historical interest, quite a few of the artists on this compilation have ties to much more famous acts: Sight & Sound bassist Rick Price went on to the Move, Mike Batt went on to be the main musical force behind the Wombles, Des James' "City Street" was written by the same guys who penned "Little Games" for the Yardbirds, and Tony Hazzard wrote hits for the Hollies and Manfred Mann. ~ Richie Unterberger