The Left Banke Too (1968)

Artist: The Left Banke
Release Year: 1968

Rating: 7/10

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Track Listing: 1) Goodbye Holly; 2) There's Gonna Be a Storm; 3) Sing Little Bird Sing; 4) Nice to See You; 5) Give the Man a Hand; 6) Bryant Hotel; 7) Desiree; 8) Dark Is the Bark; 9) In the Morning Light; 10) My Friend Today.

Hideous album cover, but that's far from the only hit that these guys took after Michael Brown's departure.  So much of this album reminisces about the stellar marriage of pop lightness and baroque darkness that begat the immaculate debut, but it rarely manages to return there again.  Sadly, while these songs are still pleasant and warm and very very listenable, they still come off as rejects from the debut.  Still, to expect these guys to reproduce Walk Away Renee/Pretty Ballerina would have been a tall order even with Michael Brown, let alone without him…so what did they come up with?

Well, I do love the opener "Goodbye Holly", one of the catchiest tracks they ever cut.  I mean, who could resist the swanky guitar riffs or the eager, gorgeous harmonies-- or the voice of Holly herself in the bridge?  Sounds like something the Zombies would've done around then.  On the other hand, "There's Gonna Be a Storm" is pretty and nice moody, but please tell me: whose dumb idea was it to put this song second?  It sounds like it should be last!  Putting a song like this here just kills the momentum we gained in the first track.  Bleh.

Then there's the usual vague-but-still preachy, "spiritual" tripe of the day, like in "Give the Man a Hand".  I can't deny that the chorus is catchy, but it also sounds like it's patronizing me for not seeing some obvious conclusion it's putting in front of me.

Back to the good.  "Desiree" is a gorgeous ballad that stands up to everything on the debut, from the mysterious "everything returns again…" exposition to the winding prechorus, which builds up to the revelatory, almost hymn-like chorus.  Oh, wait-- Michael Brown was involved with that one.  Go figure!  And "Bryant Hotel" is a ton of fun, with those haunting vocals describing the most decrepit hovel, before the chorus crashes in with a flurry of plinking piano and some screaming that only goes a little overboard.

Otherwise, it's mostly nice, mildly-above-average Sixties pop with some orchestration.  "Nice to See You" and "Dark Is the Bark" are pleasantly harmonized as usual for the Left Banke-- the first light and airy, the second dusky and romantic-- yet there's not much to make either of them much different from what the Beach Boys could have done a few years earlier.  

The rest of the album is similar in that regard: pleasant and likeable, but lacking in the punch, the immediacy, that made the debut such an incredible achievement.  Even the standout tracks can't break the feeling of stagnation that pervades the album as a whole, which is too bad, because the sound is still a unique one that I hate to see the virtual end of.