Anthea Neads & Andy Prince
Album: Love Revolution
Label: Rowan Leaf
Tracks: 13
Website: http://www.neadsandprince.com

Anthea and Andy follow their quite folk-rocky debut album Penhayl with an altogether more 60s-rock-oriented sound on Love Revolution - indeed, the cover art is as distinctly 60s-retro as is the couple's clothing and appearance, closely matching the music within. It's an energy-bedecked, uplifting-sounding set, with bright electric-fuelled musical backdrops featuring prominent electric guitar, organ, bass (Andy's ultra-melodic lines are especially good) and drums (Dave Buckley), with further instrumental contributions from guest Matt Tweed.

Taken individually, the tracks tend to exhibit an attractive and genial retro vibe, and almost any single song would readily grace an album by a summer-of-love-and/or-slightly-thereafter band from either Britain or the States; inspirations range from early Jefferson Airplane and more upbeat Doors, mildly exotic late-Monkees or Turtles, at their best (It's Alright and Market Of Souls) even back to mid-period Who, albeit with charismatic female vocals. There's even some early-space-rock synth-burbling jamming (Wild Mosaic), while This Is How The Light Gets In could almost be an early Blondie demo, and We'll Stick Together has the air of a more developed Give Peace A Chance anthem. Lyrics generally exude what the couple term "love and peace with attitude", and prove thoughtful and thus fairly typical of the era without descending into pretentiousness.

But despite the duo's consistently powerful delivery and presentation, hooks and melodies aren't all immediately memorable and it's not always easy to recall some of the individual songs in much detail even after several plays. It's rather like being presented with a forgotten and/or obscure end-'69 album and realising just why it never attained wider appreciation; it makes most of the right moves, has some great ideas and provides some undeniably strong moments (the archetypally episodic Right Time Right Place with its echt-psych leanings, also Namaste and It's Alright, spring most readily to mind), but in the end something's missing and it's not always easy to define exactly what. Nevertheless, the best of the album (probably just over two-thirds of it, which ain't a bad average!) is more than worth your time.

David Kidman