Jason Crest - Collected Works (1967-68) (1998)

This British LP does a good job of managing to stretch out Jason Crest's slim legacy to the length of an album, with both sides of four of their five singles keeping company with half a dozen previously unissued late-'60s acetates. (One of their singles, "Waterloo Road"/"Education," is not included because, according to the liner notes, the band hates it.) It's fairly good and pleasing, though not striking, period British psychedelic rock that occasionally, though not always, brings to a mind a somewhat more pop-inclined early Procol Harum. Only a couple of their tracks, though, upped the stakes from acceptable period fare to memorable performances. One was their debut 1968 single, "Turquoise Tandem Cycle," where the Procol Harum comparisons were most apt, and which is typical of a certain strand of British psychedelia, down to the florid title, classical-influenced melody, wah-wahing guitar, and celestial organ. The other is "Black Mass," where the blood-curdling vocal, monkish chanting, and occult-tinged lyrics can bring to mind a more psychedelic Black Sabbath (or even a more psychedelic Spinal Tap). On occasion they went into a more avowedly poppy vibe, as on the cover of the Move's "(Here We Go Round) The Lemon Tree" and the imaginative reworking of "You Really Got a Hold on Me," built around freaky organ lines. The sound quality of the acetates, as you'd expect, is lower than the singles, but very listenable, and the package comes with usefully detailed historical liner notes.