This came out in 2002 – or at least that’s when I got it. Here’s what I said about it back then (with some minor editing):
Pay attention now, ’cause this is going to get weird.
You know those transporter-pod things from The Fly? And that time-machine DeLorean from Back To The Future? OK. So let’s say you put ’em together into a time-travelling pod-car or something. Then imagine you parked it on L.A.’s Sunset Strip in the Summer Of Love. Then you crammed all the best acts of the day — The Doors, The Mothers Of Invention, The Turtles, Love, The Beach Boys, Captain Beefheart, The Seeds — into the backseat, set the controls for a present-day U.K. recording studio and hit the gas. But — and here’s where things start to get strange — let’s say you also picked up Bob Marley and Syd Barrett and The Specials hitch-hiking along the way. OK? So you land in 2002, open the door to find that all those bands have been gene-spliced into one magnificent neo-psychedelic, ska-tinged, ’60-rock outfit, and usher them into the studio. This is the album they would make: A spellbinding, mind-bending amalgam of classic pop songcraft, trippy echo-chamber dementia and genre-busting invention. And it’s all the product of a bunch of Liverpool teens (the singer is the old man of the group at 21). See? I told you it was going to get weird. And weirdly wonderful.
