ULTIMATE SPINACH
Behold And See
[engl] I love the late 60s psyche rock scene, especially from the USA. ULTIMATE SPINACH from Boston / Massachusetts are one of these jewels buried in the dust of oblivion quickly after their musical activities were put to an end around 1970. Well, let’s check this one out, their second album from 1968. It couldn't start better: A groovy, relaxed rock tune with a slight blues and even country rock feel on which a snotty, yet haunting female voice spits out a straight verse melody and gets joined by her bandmates for the lush melodic and flown off chorus. Nice howling acid guitars add some power to this actually quite easy piece. Next comes a sluggish acid blues with utterly fuzzed out guitar dementia and vocals tortured by LSD induced nightmares, backed with a few trippy organ lines and stumbling and tumbling drum patterns. It should be one of the most striking pieces of acid rock that will have ever hit your ears. ULTIMATE SPINACH though take a few different directions on their “Behold and see” album, including gently flowing tunes with heartwarming melodies, classic west coast rockers with these loopy ambulance siren like guitars, a bit of a garage feel and big but still dreamy chorus melodies and even peaceful flower pop with a fundament of jazzy rhythmical structures and mind caressing melodies that could easily be taken from a hard bop classic released 6 or 7 years prior to this. I would have thought about a Californian band right away if I would not know it better. ULTIMATE SPINACH often walk on the very border to the pop side of psyche and sometimes cross this line well knowing what they’re doing. But when they turn back into the promised land of colorful dreams and braid your mind with organ lines of pastoral beauty, you will lose the ground beneath your very feet. Lovers of THE ZOMBIES, THE BOW STREET RUNNERS, JEFFERSON AIRPLANE, THE GRATEFUL DEAD but also BRIAN AUGER TRINITY will wallow in sheer rupture when this album rotates in their stereos.