Laghonia - Glue (Reissue) (1968/1998)

Laghonia's debut album is a bit of a mish-mash of late-'60s styles, from the British invasion-like beat music of "Baby Baby" and "I Must Go" (which comprised the single they released as the New Juggler Sound in 1967) to heavy 1968-style psychedelic rock with hard guitar and organ riffs. There's also mellower prog-inflected pop-rock ("My Love"), soul-rock ("And I Saw Her Waiting") and son-of-Hendrix wailing ("Glue"). Sometimes you can make a pretty fair guess as to what discs these guys were wearing out: "Trouble Child," for instance, starts with a forceful variation of the Lovin' Spoonful's "Do You Believe in Magic?" riff, and ends with a guitar rave-up straight out of the Yardbirds' "I'm a Man." It's so zig-zaggy that you could mistake this for a various artists compilation. The standout, and the least derivative track, is "Bahia," which hits a nice Latin-tempoed psychedelic groove not too far removed from very early Santana, with fiery guitar from Davey Levene. Originally pressed in a small edition of 300, it was reissued on CD in 1997.