THE COLLECTORS

The Collectors' self-titled debut album shows a fine command of psychedelic rock and pop styles of the time. The best side is actually the first side, which offers a brace of small but perfectly formed psych-turning-to-prog songs with, at points, really interesting lyrics and structures (see, for instance, Howard Christian's Older). The side two epic, What Love, starts off strong but unfortunately loses steam, rapidly turning into a substandard imitation of Doors epics such as The End or When the Music's Over - whatever Howie Vickie's talents are, he's not Jim Morrison and it's rather embarrassing to listen to him trying to be Jim Morrison.