It should be ridiculous, and sure, many of the titles on this compendium of Brit-prog between 1968 and 1975 are hysterical (“McGuillicudie The Pusillanimous”?please!). But cut through the suffocating incense clouds and the pug-ugliness of the assembled rogue’s gallery and there’s some astonishing fare here. Disc 2 is especially great, featuring as it does the sub-Zeppelin delights of Clark-Hutchinson and Black Cat Bones, Room’s ambitious bong-symphony “Cemetery Junction” and Human Beast’s lovelorn hippie heartbreaker “Maybe Someday”. Thank God for punk and all that, but did we really swap all this for Chelsea and Eater?
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