Fat Mattress
' first album must have come as a surprise to fans expecting something at least somewhat related to the former activities of its most famous member, ex-
Jimi Hendrix Experience
bassist
Noel Redding
. But
doesn't sound at all like
Jimi Hendrix
(and, for that matter,
Redding
plays guitar on the album, not bass). Instead, it's passable, pleasant late-'60s
psychedelia
with a far lighter touch than the hard bluesy
psychedelic
rock
played with
Hendrix
. From the sound of things,
(who had a hand in writing much of the material) and his new cohorts were doing some heavy listening to California
and
folk-rock
, as this is far breezier and more oriented toward harmony vocals. It's often like an amalgam of
the Byrds
,
Buffalo Springfield
Moby Grape
, and
Love
, with some passing nods to British
by
Traffic
(whose
Chris Wood
plays flute on
"All Night Drinker"
),
the Move
the Small Faces
; there's even a bit of a
Monkees
-go-spacy feel to
"I Don't Mind."
In the manner of
Forever Changes
-era
, the lyrics have a fleetingly opaque feel, easy on the ear but not really about anything, save soaking up good-time vibes. The problem, at least inasmuch as playing this back to back with something like
, is that the words and music don't penetrate nearly as deeply, or coalesce into nearly as strong a group identity. They're pleasing but indeed fleeting in their impression, lacking the indelible hooks or songwriting brilliance of their apparent inspirations, the songs tending to run together in their similar moods. All that said, this isn't a bad album at all; had it not been dismissed by many
collectors as irrelevant, it might well be getting rediscovered by revisionists and championed as a minor nugget of obscure British light
psych
. The 1992 reissue on
Sequel
adds five previously unreleased bonus tracks, undated but from the sound of things cut around the same time as the album or slightly afterward, most of them using a heavier instrumental approach. (All 15 songs from the 1992 reissue are also included on the 2000
compilation
Black Sheep of the Family: The Anthology
.) ~ Richie Unterberger