The glorious Piccadilly sunshine is starting to glint off the bottom of the barrel with volume five. After the splendid fourth volume, Past & Present’s latest installment takes a dip in quality with nary a whiff of psych in the air as the “other flavours” umbrella allows more than a showering of lackluster pop.
You do get a handful of outstanding tracks, including dreamy pop-psych mysticism from Samurai on opener “Temple Of God”, The Running Jumping Standing Still Band’s proto-glam party raver “Ayeo” plus closing numbers by Sounds Bob Rogers and Toyshop, the latter an intricately arranged orchestral harmony pop cover of the Flowerpot Men’s “Say Goodbye To Yesterday”, book-ending some best forgotten bottom-end chart filler from the late ’60s.