The main thing that keeps Nick Saloman's attitude from dragging his music down is that he doesn't let it get in the way of doing what he does best: making 1960s-influenced rock sound fresh through brilliant melodies and raging guitar, not to mention lyrical wit and heart. Saloman reserves his rants for the album's opening and closing tracks. He spends the bulk of the album playing with as much ferocity as ever, as if to prove he can still blow all these young cats out of the water. And prove that he does, by putting pop hooks over absolutely searing guitar licks.

To hear the mystic vision and drive of one man, Bevis Frond mainstay Nick Saloman, give flight to the weird and wonderful visions inside his head. Saloman attempted to recast the lysergic flights of both the UFO scene and Haight-Ashbury into 1980s England, where punks and longhairs and weirdos of all types could just vibe out to the beautiful music. That's The Bevis Frond experience. Just like the fucking Lord of the Rings trilogy, the musical progression of The Bevis Frond albums are an enthralling and magical odyssey. You're not condescended to or preached at, you're invited along as a fellow traveler on a pretty bizarre odyssey. It's a fried journey, baby! Long hair and heart-melting choruses. I was talking to a friend about The Bevis Frond just last night, and he said it was like geeky psychedelia. I thought that was great, but then I wanted to one-up him so I said, "yeah kinda, but also like Dinosaur Jr. learning Syd Barrett's back catalog."

Regardless, The Bevis Frond experience is a diehard freak scene. Yow. Diamond sharp pop is tossed around like dusty Palantirs. And that's not all. Four-tracking across a bejeweled universe with fire-breathing distortion guitars, baby. It's just fucking fascinating, as a virtue of this reissue series, to hear an artist develop so quickly, all by himself, using the bare minimum tools of "rock" and recording. To the point where you're like, damn, this guy is one of the ONES! And next thing you know, you've given yourself a Jimi Hendrix perm and have been wearing a homemade Bevis Frond shirt (puff paint and chain mail) for two weeks straight with no respite. You'd be fucked if this music wasn't the key to the universe.