What were these people on, anyway? Listening to the 20 songs on this collection of "Rare British Acid Freakrock," it's hard not to notice that most of this music falls well short of sounding psychedelic, but nearly everyone involved appears to have been well twisted on something . All the singles appearing on The Electric Asylum were released in the early '70s, when the era of LSD enlightenment was supposedly on the wane, and new vistas of consciousness aren't as common here as visions that are curious and a wee bit ...
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What were these people on, anyway? Listening to the 20 songs on this collection of "Rare British Acid Freakrock," it's hard not to notice that most of this music falls well short of sounding psychedelic, but nearly everyone involved appears to have been well twisted on something . All the singles appearing on The Electric Asylum were released in the early '70s, when the era of LSD enlightenment was supposedly on the wane, and new vistas of consciousness aren't as common here as visions that are curious and a wee bit ominous, though sometimes unintentionally funny. The Mighty 'Em's "Jekyll and Hyde" kicks things off in appropriate fashion, "Magic Love" by the Iron Horse is the first of several tunes here that includes the sound of someone deeply inhaling something, "Rocket Summer" by Galahad is a baffling glam/freakbeat hybrid with a science fiction undertow, "Hey Presto, Magic Man" by Explosive is every bit as clever as its title suggests, "O.D." is a melodramatic warning against heavy drugs by Vincent Crane's Atomic Rooster, and Steel Mill's "Get on the Line" anticipates the hard rock that would become a major presence on the charts a year or two later. There are a few messed-up gems on this collection, but overall, the lineup is inconsistent; for every tune that's brilliantly odd, there's another that's odd but no more, and given the stylistic leaps and bounds this set takes, there doesn't seem to be an essentially coherent vision beyond stuff that's rare and eccentric. The Electric Asylum may help you frighten your children away from illicit substances by demonstrating they don't always spawn cool music, but for simple listening purposes, this is very much a mixed bag. ~ Mark Deming, Rovi
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