The West Coast Pop Art Experimental Band, no strangers to weirdness on their prior 1967 album
Part One, had still often stuck to relatively straightforward, concise, and
pop-flavored songs on that LP. Here they stretched out into less structured, more avowedly
psychedelic (and indeed
experimental) territory, with mixed results.
"Smell of Incense" (covered for a small hit by
Southwest FOB) was sublime
psych-pop. Yet
"Suppose They Give a War and No One Comes" was just some fool -- actually the band's chief investor, lyricist, and tambourine player,
Bob Markley -- grafting silly, self-consciously freaky recitation of a vintage 1936
Franklin Roosevelt speech onto an ominous fuzz guitar backup. Other cuts like
"In the Arena" and
"Overture -- WCPAEB Part II" were free-form
psychedelic creepiness without the strong content of, say, likely influence
Frank Zappa. Yet some of the strangest efforts exert their own strange charm, like
"Buddha," with its unfathomable delineation of a garden of delights set against chimes, tinkles, and gongs. Interspersed with all this was some generic
country-
folk-
rock (although the wavering backup bagpipes on
"Delicate Fawn" give even that a weird sheen), fair harmony soft
rock (
"Queen Nymphet"), and unhinged
garage-
psych-
fuzz madness. There's half a decent (if screwy)
psychedelic album here, and half incoherence, particularly when so many disparate tracks and styles are slung against each other. The CD reissue on
Sundazed adds mono single mixes of
"Smell of Incense" and
"Unfree Child." ~ Richie Unterberger