Girl For Sale

Here are the third and fourth albums from Fever Tree, that great lost Texas band of the sixties, and while neither is as good as the first two, both of them (particularly Creation) have some stunning moments…

The second (and arguably most fully realized) album from Texas psychedelic band Fever Tree, Another Time, Another Place (1968) owes less to the sound of roots-based contemporaries like the 13th Floor Elevators, Moving Sidewalks, or the Sir Douglas Quintet and more to heavier West Coast acid rock. One of the most underrated '60s psych bands, Fever Tree comes off like a coincidental midnight meeting of Jim Morrison, Steppenwolf, Jefferson Airplane, Iron Butterfly, and Jimi Hendrix at the tail end of a drug and whiskey binge. Luckily, however, the group transcends its influences by sheer force of attitude. The material here (mostly written by producers Scott Holtzman and Vivian Holtzman) is of generally pretty high quality, wisely avoiding too much of the drippy "ice cream cones and cosmic smiles" type stuff that bogged down the work of pretenders like Ultimate Spinach and Tricycle…

German quintet Fool's Garden's fourth album combines a fondness for radio-friendly pop with what, on paper, would seem like a contradictory affection for AOR/prog rock atmospherics – splashy guitar solos and wailing strings. In reality, the formula works decently enough most of the time, producing a bunch of songs that are tuneful and accessible, if occasionally prone to excess. A good half of the songs on For Sale are cast in the chirpy, bouncy mold of Fool's Garden's one hit to date, 1998's "Lemon Tree." "Suzy" steals Robert Plant's vocal wail at the end of "Stairway to Heaven" and turns it into a synth riff on a song that already boasts an inescapable vocal hook and an infectious, sub-reggae rhythm.