The Troggs

West Country garage-rock legends’ mid-70s return.

Sadly, this isn’t an extended version of the legendary 1970 studio bust-up on which singer Reg Presley bellows: “You’ve got to put a little bit of fairy dust over the bastard!” which reputedly inspired both Peter Cook and Dudley Moore’s Derek And

Clive incarnation and Spinal Tap.

However, this 1976 comeback still has plenty of spirit. With original producer Larry Page back at the controls, rabblerousers Get You Tonight and Gonna Make You Mine come with a glam-rock crunch, while Down South To Georgia is a seriously funky sludge-blues. Presley’s gut-wrenching delivery on a version of Rufus Thomas’s Walkin’ The Dog, meanwhile, is a scorching reminder that no one did rock’n’roll primitivism quite like The Troggs.

While I’ll Buy You An Island

(which revisits the tune of The Beatles’ Ballad Of John And Yoko)

and syrupy ballad After The Rain

provide echoes of their beatgroup past, a Dylan-esque Different Me reminds us that this is a band who were all too aware of their limitations, Presley sighing: ‘If I sang like Paul McCartney, if I could dance like Fred Astaire’ over a descending chord sequence.

With a tongue-in-cheek title – and sleeve – nodding to their own reputation, The Trogg Tapes

is a curio worthy of investigation. ■■■■■■■■■■

Twins, a fervid bunch of

Camden art-mods called the Studio 68! were taking their own individual trip – back to a jumping Brighton garage-soul night in 1965.

Much of this collection of tracks recorded between ’87 and ’91 puts you right there in the speed-freaking mod club; mashing Small Faces, Funkadelic and The Sonics into what the band called “The Total Sound”, these wild soul rampages are almost gruesomely grainy, and the sheer passion in the room seems to warp the tape.

They tout themselves as the seed of Britpop, but their story is actually one of realigning with the thrill of their own era. Early touches of psychedelia (they cover Cliff Richard’s Devil Woman in the style of a very, very far-out Stones) evolve into Happy Mondays grooves by

Time Machine, while expunging a layer of grit on later tracks reveals Dexys pop vivacity

(Closer Than Close), blaxploitation Style Council

(Living In A World Of Your Own) and ultimately full electro-baggy

(The Sky’s The Limit).

Worth a visit to take you back to the days that being ‘bluepilled’ meant something very different indeed. ■■■■■■■■■■ architect of stripped-down prepunk, proto-kosmische electronic dance music before electronic dance music was even a thing. Already working as a duo when Giorgio Moroder wrote Son Of My Father for Chicory Tip, they shared bills with the New York Dolls. Here then are their freshly remastered greatest ‘hits’. Dream Baby Dream is still gorgeous, Ghost Rider magnificent, Rocket USA

astounding and Frankie Teardrop

(represented in a previously unheard early incarnation) just as disturbing, devastating and unforgettable as ever.

Soul-crushingly beautiful stuff. ■■■■■■■■■■