The second album is not as consistent as the debut but still has many highlights. The second side is far more interesting than the first, though. "Had Me A Real Good Time" is the clear, raucous stand out, but also of note is the lo-fi grumble of "On The Beach". There are a couple of live tracks, including Paul McCartney's "Maybe I'm Amazed", to accentuate the happy drunk vibe.

The final studio album and the beginning of the end, as Ronnie Lane departed right after it was released. Many of the tracks were Lane creations and therefore, the record has more of a pastoral, contemplative vibe, which is refreshing next to the previous three records.

The follow-up to the rather apocalyptic-sounding debut album reflects more of a carnival-type sound, even though in quite a few places the creepy, droning feel is still present. “Damn Fool” is definitely on the humorous side of the fence, set to a rollicking junkanoo beat, while the man himself serenades the listener with a tale of an unfortunate soul who married what he thought was a woman, but turned into a “a big, black bird”. Another track, “Paul Simon Nontooth”, is more like a running dialogue and has barely anything to do with structured music. And the doomsayers still rear their ugly heads, on tracks like “Baal”, and the heavily ironic “A Place Called Earth”. But a funny thing happens later in the album – McKay’s pop instincts make an appearance. Take the hardcore island rhythms out of “We Got to Go”, “African Rhythm”, and “Zandoo”, and you might have some music that could make a Top 40 station or two. Well, OK…maybe not, but you can tell the man was not adverse to good pop craft. So, in the end, maybe a slight drop-off is in the cards, but worth hearing the entire way through, because he gives us a moderately different take on the debut.

Before they gained notoriety as John Lennon and Yoko Ono's backing band during their radical political phase in New York City, Elephant's Memory was a rough-and-tumble street outfit in Greenwich Village, honing their craft in strip clubs and biker bars. Which makes it all the more surprising that their debut was: 1) released on a label known for its bubblegum content (Buddah Records), and 2) the content of the album in no way matched up with their reputation. There are songs about yogurt, hot dogs, some San Francisco-like pop grooves ("Band of Love", "Crossroads of the Stepping Stones"), and overriding all of this, a very jaunty, rough-house take on the jazz-rock that was emerging onto radio stations back then. The group was essentially Stan Bronstein, Rick Frank, and a revolving cast of characters who carried over to the next record. As far as this one goes, it's really just an odd curio from an era that had more than it's fair share of them.

An extremely obscure artifact from the prog-rock era - something like only 80 copies of the original album were pressed - recorded by an occult-obsessed trio, with nary a guitar in the lineup, by the way. Just keyboards - and we are talking about a harpsichord - drums, and bass. This album is roughly what would happen if Iron Butterfly or Vanilla Fudge got transported back to the early 20th century and decided to start singing about the occult. The songs are interesting, too. This is an album about good and evil, except here the protagonist wants evil to win. Well, that is not quite correct - rather, he wants something more realistic than what he perceives as the BS he's been fed about being good and Christian and all of that, and wants something more out of life. This is more like viewing the occult as an awakening. So, throughout each of these six tracks this back and forth plays out, and by the time "In a Token of Despair" winds down its' tortured final notes, one gets the feeling the battle itself has worn down the host once and for all. Re-issues present two quite straight tracks tacked on at the end of this maelstrom ("Lady Ladybird" and "People in the Street") which were cut the year before, as if to prove they had enough piano-racing talent for honest-to-God pop chart ambitions, except they really didn't.