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Jake Holmes deserved so much more. Sure, he wasn't Dylan (or, for that matter, Lennon or Jagger), but he was good. Damn good. In fact, on some of these songs, he was utterly brilliant: "Did You Know" and "Too Long" are ethereal, haunting, and utterly gorgeous, full of sonorous, moaning guitars and pained longing. "Dazed And Confused" (which Led Zeppelin would later cover without crediting, heartlessly depriving Holmes at what may have been his best chance for success) is an apocalyptic psych-folk masterpiece, dripping with raw paranoia and emotional chaos. "Lonely" features a chaotic and acrobatic guitar run, with harrowed vocals exploding over caustic melodies. "She Belongs To Me" swings with humor and attitude, while "Penny's" is just plain engaging. In general, this album is both gorgeous and harrowing, full of surreal melodic constructions drifting through a dreamy haze of ringing guitars and haunted vocals. The music is hypnotic, the vocals motive, the ideas original and the overall tone often otherworldly. This is a mid 60s folk classic that belongs in the collection of anybody and everybody with even a passing interest in the decade.
