With leader Roky Erickson in Austin’s Rusk State Mental Hospital, guitarist Stacy Sutherland took the reins for this, their third and final album. Largely cobbled from outtakes and re-recordings of early songs, there are rough nuggets here?the brassy, Love-like “Doctor Doom”, the Credence-meets-Zappa chug of “Scarlet And Gold” and Erickson’s sole contribution, the brittle-sweet “May The Circle Remain Unbroken”. But it remains a pale cousin of their ’66 debut The Psychedelic Sounds Of and follow-up Easter Everywhere. However, nestling among 10 bonus tracks, mostly poor-quality live cuts, is a beautifully fragile acoustic take on early classic “Splash 1”
Advertisement