Famously included on the original Nuggets compilation, The Third Rail were quite some way from any standard definition of a garage act. Comprising husband and wife songwriting team Kris and Artie Resnick (Artie a veteran of the Brill Building, having co-written The Drifters’ Under The Boardwalk), and future bubblegum kingpin Joey Levine, the short-lived Third Rail only released one album, this fascinating and stylistically diverse pop-psych curio.
Originally released on Epic in 1967, this expanded CD reissue first includes not only the original 10-track album but single edits and non-album 45s. Though awash with sugary sweet harmonies, ID Music’s thick and sticky brew of all things pop, psych and garage hints at something darker and not quite so innocent bubbling away underneath.
Post-ID Music, all three members of The Third Rail would find themselves major players in the candy coloured world of bubblegum, with chart topping acts Ohio Express and the Kasenetz-Katz Singing Orchestral Circus. Nothing would match the sheer inventiveness and sophisticated out-thereness of this memorable long player, though.
