The concept/joke here is that this CD is supposedly a compilation of obscure Boston area bands such as the patchbay-plugging electronics wizards space echo (lowercase mandatory), the American Fairport equivalents The Merrie Shyrwode Rangers, or the "anthemic, nay archetypal" North End Molasses Disaster (so say the liner notes). All the bands are, of course, Abunai!, concept inspired by the Turtles' Battle of the Bands album from 1968. Abunai! (Japanese for "look out!" - thus the exclamation mark) don't really make much effort to distinguish the different "bands" (except that the "space echo" track is a collage of bleeps and boops and echoplex), in effect confining the joke to the liner notes. This is a good decision, since it allows Abunai! to work its modal Appalachian folk-drone psychedelia as it sees fit. (It's no accident that two traditional songs, "Barbara Allen" and "Sweet William," are covered here.) The songs generally settle into a comfortable one- or two-chord drone, stretch out over six or seven minutes, and add texture with multiple vocal parts (all four band members sing), wah-wah damage like early Mercury Rev, and loping McCartney-esque high-register melodic bass wanderings. Along with the two folk covers, "Tomorrow" (credited to "The Sea Monks"), "Learning to Ask" (by "The Red Baise") and "To Think That You Knew" ("The Seven Seals") are the standout tracks.Since most of these songs are on the first half of the disc, the second half pales by comparison, but it never drags tiresomely. Note for tech-heads: Abunai! have found a new gimmick for hidden tracks, including an 8-minute jam in MP3 format to play on your computer.

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