by Richie Unterberger
All 11 tracks from the 1968 LP, with the addition of seven previously unreleased items and a couple cuts from non-LP singles. Although the production is beautiful and the songwriting melodic, the material is really too cloying to qualify this as a lost classic. When there's even a bit of a serious or melancholic edge -- as on the graceful opening track &Another Time,& or Gary Usher's strange and stunning slice of psych-pop, &The Truth Is Not Real& -- it's much more memorable. Otherwise, this is kind of like the lesser fairy-tale, sing-songy British psychedelia of the time, but with state-of-the-art L.A. '60s production. The bonus cuts are similar to the album, highlighted by the gorgeous instrumental &Sister Marie,& although the non-LP single &Hotel Indiscreet& is silly fluff. The version of &My World Fell Down& that appeared on Present Tense was brutally edited, but fear not: one of the bonus cuts is the classic original single version, all of its glory (and avant-garde bridge of found noise) intact.