The Lemon Twigs: Do Hollywood (4AD)

And mostly British.

On this debut album they indulge in eccentrically Brit-psychedelia which has its reference points in Lennon's tripped-out acid-pop, the Bonzo Dog Doo Dah Band, something of the Monkees in their later days when the reins were loosened . . .

Quirky, time-shifting, sometimes dreamily baroque and at others full of fairground freneticism . . .

Enjoyable though this is – and it's kinda fun to play spot-that-influence – the first half of this doesn't have the grip (the songs) of the second.

The opener works well as a kind of McCartney-influenced Fifties ballad which has landed in the middle of Magical Mystery Tour sessions, but what follows are slight despite the elaborate production (things Nilsson would knock off before his first breakfast-time brandy) until the midpoint when These Words (a little of the late Sixties Bee Gees) stumbles in for some memorable pop and is followed by As Long As We're Together which welds spare balladry with widescreen Flaming Lips on the chorus.

And so it goes: Macca/Nilsson piano-based songs, bass lines mixed up front, the closer A Great Snake is a neat dream-pop song pulled out to near seven minutes of various segments.

An album which unfortunately remains mostly the parts . . . and not the sum of them.

Want actual Sixties psyche-pop? Then check out this and follow the many links at the end.