Customer Reviews

The Inner Mystique / One Step Beyond

5 star:		(0)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Tow great albums from the classic Bay Area 60's psychedelic garage punk band. This stuff is as good as The Jefferson Airplane, Moby Grape and The Grateful Dead.

This is a very different listen from the two separate CD's with bonus tracks usually featuring Dave Aguilar. (Of course, Dave's vocals are one of the main reasons for Watchband interest). The original LPs were short and here they fit together to make a great slice of sixties San Francisco Bay Area psychedelia. At 50 minutes 16 seconds, this CD moves fast and plays great. I can just see the smoke rising as the instrumental "Voyage of the Trieste" starts things off. And "Devil's Motorcycle" can still melt vinyl.
The three Sundazed CD releases with bonus tracks are still the best way to get your Chocolate Watchband, but this two-fer is an effective time capsule and makes for a great party record.

...But here goes. These are the last two albums released by the psychedelic legends the Chocolate Watchband, and are certainly of their time. "The Inner Mystique" is a mixed bag, a strange sort of compilation where some tracks feature only one or two band members with session players, some appear to be the whole band, and three have no involvement from the actual band at all. I hate to say it, but the best tracks are those without any Watchband guys at work. 'In The Past' is really the only classic on the album, a fantastic psychedelic production that still sounds great. The rest is...well, ok, but in the modern era more of a novelty than anything else.
"One Step Beyond" is a much better album overall, and seems to be the only CW work entirely done by the band. There's little brilliance going on for the most part, but at least it holds together very well and even today remains a nice listening experience, with the psychedelia toned down considerably (well, it was a 1969 album) and replaced by actual rock and roll. Two stars for "Inner Mystique", and four for "One Step Beyond".
The sound quality is better on this cd than of any other cd releases I've heard, but there are no bonus tracks and almost no liner notes. So you get two original albums to groove to when the lighters flare up.