There's a good reason why
the Move
's eponymous 1968 debut album sounds like the work of two or three different bands -- actually, befitting a band with multiple lead singers, there's more than one reason. First, there's that lead singer conundrum.
Carl Wayne
was the group's frontman, but
Roy Wood
wrote the band's original tunes and sometimes took the lead, and when the group covered a
rock & roll
class, they could have rhythm guitarist
Trevor Burton
sing (as they did on
Eddie Cochran
's
"Weekend"
) or drummer
Bev Bevan
(as they did on
the Coasters
'
"Zing Went the Strings of My Heart"
). Such ever-changing leads can lend excitement but it can also lend confusion, especially when the group enthusiastically mixes up
Who
-inspired
art pop
with three-chord
oldies and more than a hint of British eccentricity. Add to that, the album had a long, convoluted birth of 14 months, a long span of time in
pop
music, but it was an eternity in the mid-'60s, when styles and sounds were changing monthly.
The Move
were releasing singles during this time so they weren't absent from the scene, but they did happen to be set upon a course of cutting singles when their peers were crafting album-length epics, something that separated them from the pack, making them seem eccentric...and
needed no help in seeming eccentric. In an age filled with outsized originals,
may have been the most peculiar, not quite fitting into any particular scene or sound. They rivaled
the Who
in their almost violent power, but were almost entirely devoid of
Mod
style, despite the "Ace" nickname of bassist
Chris Kefford
. They were as defiantly British as
the Kinks
, but during 1967 and 1968 they were more closely tied to
psychedelia
than the Davies brothers, producing intensely colorful records like
"(Here We Go Round) The Lemon Tree"
and
"I Can Hear the Grass Grow,"
songs that owed a heavy debt to
the Beatles
. Indeed,
were arguably at the forefront of the second wave of the
British Invasion
, building upon the bright, exuberant sound of 1964 and 1965 and lacking any rooting in the
jazz
blues
that fueled
the Rolling Stones
,
the Animals
, and
Manfred Mann
, among countless others.
sounded so new that their 1968 debut still sounds unusual, ping-ponging between restless, kaleidoscopic
and almost campy salutes to early
, punctuated by the occasional foray into the English countryside and, with the closing
"Cherry Blossom Clinic,"
psychic nightmare. Much of this oddity can be ascribed to
, the only member to write, but
were certainly a collective, sounding just as off-kilter and distinctive on the aforementioned oldies covers and their version of
Moby Grape
"Hey Grandma"
as they do on their originals. But it's
Wood
's originals -- ranging from the stately, tightly-buttoned
"Kilroy Was Here"
to the carnivalesque
; from the gentle, precious
"Mist on a Monday Morning"
to the perfect
of
"Fire Brigade"
"Flowers in the Rain"
-- that give
its heady rush of melody and tangible sonic textures. This is vivid, imaginative music -- almost too vivid, really, as there are so many ideas that it doesn't quite hold together as a complete LP, a curse of the prolonged sessions behind the album, surely. Nevertheless,
art-pop
albums are always better when there are too many ideas instead of too few, and
is one of the first to prove that axiom true. [A Remastered and Expanded Deluxe Edition of
comprised three discs and 65 tracks.] ~ Stephen Thomas Erlewine