The story is so well known it doesn’t bear repeating. Soon after the final member of the original, reverberating plank-crunchers in the original Electric Prunes had been jettisoned by music biz ‘opportunists’ Lenny Poncher (manager), Dave Hassinger (producer) and David Axelrod (composer); soon after the real band’s shuddering, vital sound was ditched in favour of the prog-style Latin hymns that surfaced on the Easy Rider soundtrack as Kyrie Eleison, out crept these two stillborn turkeys.
To be fair, 1968’s Release Of An Oath at least offered a foretaste of prog’s ambient excesses, but then its provenance precludes any right to fairness. A 25-minute playing time is the final insult. Rock’n’Roll is the sound of several session men filling studio time in a range of secondhand contemporary styles, hateful even now for the sheer chutzpah of their billing as ‘the new, improved’ Electric Prunes.
Forget this crap and hear instead the real-deal, reformed Prunes’ new album, or the definitive Too Much To Dream retrospective on Rhino.
