Jacks - Vacant World (2003)

The inclusion of one of these songs, "Gloomy Flower," on the Love, Peace & Poetry: Japanese Psychedelic Music compilation might incite one to expect this album from this '60s Japanese group to be more psychedelic than it is. Some of the material is psychedelic, though of a highly chaotic, mordant nature, with "Marianne" (sung in Japanese, despite the title) matching a gloomy ballad to thrashing drums, free jazz bass, and some searing psychedelic distorted guitar. Much of the record is gloomy balladry without as much psychedelia, however, or anypsychedelia at all. Sometimes it feels like you're hearing a particularly downcast lounge band on a bummer trip, there's so much just-short-of-weeping sadness, some spidery reverb guitar being the only slightly weird element. More of that American psychedelic-influenced guitar does appear on songs like "In the Broken Mirror" and "Gloomy Flower," though it's a little amateurish compared to the original article. They actually get a bit upbeat and happy on "Where?," but largely the mood is as despondent as the album title. It's different from most Western psychedelia, sure, but it's not that good, and not all that far-out or imaginative.

Rolling Stone Japan placed it at number 13 on its list of the "100 Greatest Japanese Rock Albums of All Time".