Ignition

Mediocre melodic rock from this Scandinavian band who were formed to play a set of unreleased songs collected by MTM manager Magnus Soderkvist.Three of those were co-written by Sherwood: "Tell Me You're Mine" (described by Söderström as "Powerful AOR track with a rhythmic thing going on that I like."), "Night After Night" ("Quite a heavy tune this one. Riff made of pure lead. Johan pounding the poor drums with the thickest drumsticks he could find. Pontus hitting the strings of his bass with a brick.") and "Should have Done You Right" ("The ballad of the album. Good melody and the form of the song is not that obvious which I think makes it more interesting. Excellent vocals from Jan."). None are particularly notable. Sherwood's co-writers are Jimmy Haun, who played on Union, and Guy Allison of World Trade. As far as I know, they have never released their own versions of these songs. Babylon is a cover of the Starship song, while John Wetton-collaborator Bob Marlette co-wrote a couple of the other pieces.

As this has a mixture of rare singles and unreleased tracks from 1965-1969, it's primarily for converted Music Machine fans, not for those who want just one album by the group or a place to start investigation. That said, it's a pretty interesting assortment of odds and ends, a few of which are among the band's best efforts. Foremost among them is the explosive (and quite innovative for its time) 1966 number "Point of No Return" with its unusual mixture of folk-rock and pre-acid guitar work, as well as a magnificent anguished, subtly anti-war vocal by singer and songwriter Sean Bonniwell. The moody, building-from-a-smolder-to-a-roar "Dark White," a 1969 outtake, was already heard on the out-of-print Rhino best-of LP. It's also one of Bonniwell's better creations, as well as one of the best lyrical meditations upon the ambiguous tension of sexual desire that you're likely to hear…