THE APRYL FOOL

The first Japanese psychedelic blues album I've ever heard. Actually, come to think of it, it's the only Japanese psychedelic blues album I've ever heard. Maybe that's the April Fool's joke? Anyway, to be fair, few of the songs here are really psychedelic-blues tunes; most are one or the other.

There are lots of US and UK musical influences here, from the aptly-named filler "Honky Tonk Jam" reminds me of the hootenanny-styled Beach Boys Party! (1965) as well as Bob Dylan's "Rainy Day Women #12 & 35" (1966). "Apryl Blues" is a faster number, but with much the same atmosphere. The Beatles are evoked most clearly on the far-out psychedelia of "The Lost Mother Land (part 1)" - - unless you count Apryl Fool's name, that is.

If there weren't so many other North American and British groups doing this kind of music in 1969, I can picture Apryl Fool receiving some airplay in the US, perhaps with a song like "Tanger." But it was still just 25 years after World War II. And Japanese auto manufacturers were beginning to erode domestic car sales in the US. And the Vietnam war. And so on. US record-buyers were probably comfortable with their domestic and Western-European choices.

Apryl Fool would've had to have been spectacular to have gotten a fair shake in the holy grail of consumer markets. Among the albums that hit #1 on the Billboard charts in 1969 were The Beatles ("The White Album"), Blood, Sweat, and Tears, Blind Faith, Creedence Clearwater Revival's Green River, Abbey Road, and Led Zeppelin II. Apryl Fool doesn't really compare to any of these in terms of composition, and its production and sound quality were several years behind the times.

Of course, its lack of popularity in the US doesn't mean Apryl Fool isn't a great album. But the band created a work that so plainly reflected contemporary Western rock that it couldn't not be compared with the biggest names of the times. And by that measure it's not a great album. It interprets late-60s Western rock but doesn't add much to it - - in my opinion. I wonder what a follow-up album would've sounded like if they'd consolidated the somewhat radio-friendly approach of "Tanger" and the psychedelic sound of "The Lost Mother Land" (both Part 1 and the even weirder, album-closing Part 2). Plenty of very successful groups had debuts that weren't any better than Apryl Fool - - the Moody Blues, Rush, and Genesis come to mind. Unfortunately, Apryl Fool broke up after just one album. As it happens, the group's members went on to greater things, two of them forming Yellow Magic Orchestra.

Two stars for an interesting, historically important, but unfulfilling album.