Bit 'A Sweet - 1968 - Hypnotic 1

Quality: 3.75 out of 5
Trip-O-Meter: 4 out of 5

Although saddled with a terrible name, Bit 'A Sweet turns out to be a fine psychedelic band. These guys get a gold star for psychedelic diversity, managing to stuff raga rock, straight up psych-pop, twee, bubblegum, and futurist Moog squiggles into a 40 minute album. I doubt you'll like everything here, but I find that the batting average is pretty high.


Really, it's difficult not to make this review simply a category of style, and I'm not going to try too hard to do otherwise. We'll get the negatives straight out of the way. The 'happy days toy town' vibe of "Monday-Tuesday" doesn't do it for me, nor does the watered-down Procol Harem organ soul of "A Second Time." Unfortunately, the latter goes on for 8:38 and typically convinces me to end the album early (it's the last track). The rest is much better. Bit 'A Sweet acknowledges the East in typical hippy-fied manner on the great opening raga rock of "Speak Softly," and the Indian-influenced folk rocker "Travel." Yeah, I know sitars are a cliche, but I still dig it when they show up anyway. "2086" is a gleefully stupid futurist track which builds stock with me through it's primitive Moog sounds and the pure mindless optimism of the lyrics (In 1983 we banished sad). The squiggly synth sounds also appear on the bubblegummy "Diamond Studded Eyes." "How Can I Make You See" is a decent enough rave up and the band even manages a worthwhile Beatles cover with "If I Needed Someone."


This should satisfy your hunger for psychedelic sound for at least a few days. The great thing here is that if you don't dig a track, just go to the next one and you'll get something completely different.