The psychedelic label given to this record seems entirely misplaced from the opening track, A Girl Like You. It's something I would expect to find opening a Temptations or Four Tops album with its big brass blasts blaring in magnificent reverb behind the falsetto three part harmony.
I'm already settling in for a taste of Motown when Find Somebody Like You steps up with that heavy treble guitar dancing the tightrope between the Beatles and the 13th Floor Elevators. Suffice to say I was grateful for the passing resemblance to something tuneful but it was too sharp and rattly to be pleasant in the face of its predecessor.
I'm So Happy Now is a title not devoid of irony at this juncture as it puts me in mind of a bipolar patient pitching violently on a sea of moods. Yes, in what seems to be the establishing of an on/off relationship with the Motown feel, we're back in Axel Foley country but this time with a greater presence of acoustic guitar, the repeated notes reminding me of Sweetest Feeling.
Sueno, complete with that tilde over the N that I can't be arsed to figure out on this keyboard, begins as you might expect, with bit of a spaghetti western cadenza but then breaks into a poppy little song that is no more reminiscent of Latin music than Metallica. True, there are castanets audible later on but that's pretty much it.
In How Can I Be Sure we take a step into the world of 60s movies set in lazy, hot European climates. The leading lady is driving with the top down along a winding mountain pass to where a handsome man will open her car door and escort her thru the doors of a casino. The only thing wavier than his hair are the flared trousers of his suit and the only thing cheesier than that image is this song. I love it.
The title track delivers on its promise but not in the pulsing, funky way I had hoped for. Rather, it's a horizontal, bland little samba the most notable detail of which is the tight harmonies. It's okay but I'm struggling to discern what about it makes it worth naming the album after.
If You Knew I had previously thought was the opening track thanks to another MP3 tagging fuck up here at HQ but that is some indication of the song's strength. Again, I can hear one of the boy bands of the day singing this. It's not a show stopper but it's very catchy and precise as a summer stroller.
I Don't Love You Anymore gives a bit too much attention to the congas and bongos for my liking and while simple song concepts are often the best, this one is incongruous to its arrangement. The vocal sweeps of harmony seem to be attempting to mask the weaknesses of the core material whereas the percussion merely erects a big neon sign over it flashing "FILLER FILLER FILLLER".
I like You Better Run. It's the rockiest of the songs so far and if not for a bit of over-confident ad libbing and a lack of imagination with the guitar parts, it'd be more my thing but I lost concentration fairly quickly and that's never a good sign.
As is so often the lamentable truth, the album is now starting to show signs of fatigue. A Place In The Sun contains a few of what I recognise as time-filling tricks. An instrumental round with the lyrics spoken, an elongated finish as each line is stretched to a few bars and littered with languishing pauses for the singer to extemporise - these are the tools that dig the grave that waits to swallow the corpse of what promised so much.
I'll concede that It's Love was a surprisingly strong closer given the omens but those two earlier tracks were too weak to be on an album I enjoyed as much as I did this one on the whole. This will be one of those that I cherry pick for a mix tape, methinks.
