A Child's Guide To Good And Evil - Reprise 1968

Tracks: 1. Eighteen Is Over The Hill / 2. In The Country / 3. Ritual #1 / 4. Our Drummer Always Plays In The Nude / 5. As The World Rises And Falls / 6. Until The Poorest Of People Have Money To Spend / 7. Watch Yourself / 8. A Child's Guide To Good And Evil / 9. Ritual #2 / 10. A Child Of A Few Hours Is Burning To Death / 11. As Kind As Summer / 12. Anniversary Of World War III / 13. Shifting Sands* / 14. 1906*

Comments:

"A Child's Guide to Good and Evil" from 1968 was probably the West Coast Pop Art Experimental Band's most ambitious and experimental album, on which psychedelic sounds and studio experiments are mixed with more melodic songwriting with roots in folk and popmusic. In the lyrics, as on the previous Reprise albums, a bizarre mix of innocence and malice is found.

There is no new "hit" a la "Transparent Day" or "Smell of Incense" but a little handful of songs where harmony and melody is highlighted. My favorites "Eighteen Is Over the Hill", "A Child's Guide to Good and Evil" and "As the World Rises and Falls" belong to all this category - the latter reminds me somehow of Donovan.

In the more psychedelic section, "Ritual 1" and "Watch Yourself" are also pretty good.

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