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 and * ‎– Zinc Alloy And The Hidden Riders Of Tomorrow Label:  ‎– RAP 505 Format: , LP, Album, Reissue 
Country: Released: Genre: ,  Style: ,  Tracklist A1Venus LoonA2Sound PitA3Explosive MouthA4GalaxyA5ChangeA6Nameless WildnessA7Teenage DreamB1Liquid GangB2Carsmile Smith & The Old OneB3You've Got To Jive To Stay Alive - Spanish MidnightB4Interstellar SoulB5Painless Persuasion & The Meathawk ImmaculateB6The Avengers (Superbad)B7The Leopards Featuring Gardenia & The Mighty Slug Companies etc Phonographic Copyright (p) –  Published By –  Published By – 

Review by Dave Thompson 

By late 1973, 's star was waning fast. No longer gunning out those effortless classics which established him as the most important figure of the decade so far, he embarked instead on a voyage of musical discovery, which cast him so far adrift from the commercial pop mainstream that when his critics said he'd blown it, he didn't even bother answering them back. Or that's the way it appeared at the time, and today, too, it must be acknowledged that 1974's  is not classic , even if one overlooks the transparency of its title. After all, hadn't  already done the Fictional Someone & the Somethings from Somewhere routine? Indeed he had, as his fans kept remarking at the time, and when the knives began slashing  to shreds, that was one of the fiercest wounds. Time, however, has healed almost all of them. Indeed, hindsight proves that, far from losing his muse, 's biggest sin was losing his once-impeccable sense of occasion. The world wasn't ready for this latest , and the fact that it wasn't interested in the old  either is just another object lesson in the fabled fickleness of pop fans. How faulty was 's timing, though? As it transpired, he was out by no more than a year, maybe less than six months. The era of disco was coming, and with it the wholesale transformation of a wealth of rocking talents. But while  was barely dreaming of young Americans' fame, and  was still road testing the pharmaceutical properties of l'amour,  was up to his neck in American radio, pulling out an album which exceeded his assumed capabilities no less than it shot right over the heads of the kids who once bought all his hits. "The Groover," the spring 1973 single which many regarded as the first sign of 's fall from grace, marked the birth of this new fascination, a simple but solid slab of funk-inflected rock which did, indeed, groove. (The track is one of five bonus tracks appended to the album's Edsel reissue). The yearning, heavily orchestrated hit "Teenage Dream" hit notwithstanding, the heart of , then, simply followed in "The Groover"'s footsteps, an abandoned romp through the R&B influences which  had always acknowledged, but never truly explored -- the solid drive of "The Avengers (Superbad)," "Interstellar Soul," "Liquid Gang," and the implausibly slight, but impressively groove-ridden "You've Got to Jive to Stay Alive." Into the same bag, one can also throw the period b-sides "Satisfaction Pony" and "Sitting Here" -- both of which have also been added to the album. Deeply soul-soaked songs like these aren't simply a new direction. They are the very signposts which would soon be guiding so many other English rock talents down some very unfamiliar alleyways.  was released in March, 1974.  began rehearsing his Philly Dogs tour in July. Yet, even with such credentials to uphold it, this isn't quite 's soul album. Those demons would be exorcised on a second record cut with singer Sister Pat Hall and elsewhere in his collaborations with girlfriend . Besides, the production here was just a little too cautious to truly convince the wary listener. Neither can it be neatly categorized in the same fashion as, say, 's Young Americans --  looked across the spectrum for his influences, but he never once went to Philadelphia. Rather, it straddles that same pop/rock, funky R&B landscape as early , Sly Stone and Co., neither fish nor fowl, dead fish nor foul, but something somewhere in between. Approach it with caution. But get in there regardless.