Rating: 2
Squirm factor: 3
You know how, when you're stoned, the sense of time and space becomes warped? Well, I don't, but that's what I've heard. Anyway, it seems like this album must have been conceived during a particularly warped evening. It's like someone down at the Top 40 station in 1966 decided to put his thumb on the turntable all night. Seriously, this is the slowest version of "You Keep Me Hanging On" in the history of mankind, and "Bang Bang (My Baby Shot Me Down)" is even slower. The instrumentation is proto-psychedelic: massively overamped organ, very busy drums and bass, and a minimal guitar. They're all performed well, particularly the organ, but man are these songs slow. The singer has an adequate white soul voice, but nothing to write home about. These songs sure are slow. You know the Carpenters' version of "Ticket to Ride"? Vanilla Fudge does it even slower.
As an added detriment, this group spawned Carmine Appice, who foisted upon the world, among other things, "Do You Think I'm Sexy?"
These songs sure are slow.