I See The Rain (The CBS Years)

These 25 tracks represent the Marmalade's complete recorded output for CBS Records, including a pair of outtakes. The band simply moves from strength to strength during their period with CBS, starting with the superb Mike Smith-produced "It's All Leading up to Saturday Night," with its great beat and catchy choruses, and getting better from there. The title track has a special resonance; it's a glistening piece that mixes hard-rock guitar and bass with exquisite harmonies in a manner that overlaps with the Hollies. Yet, with its careful use of guitar distortion pumped up to sound like an orchestra, and a soaring choral phrase or two, the song also strangely anticipates the sound of the Electric Light Orchestra at their most poppy. Its B-side, "Laughing Man," which crosses paths stylistically with "Paperback Writer" and "Nowhere Man," is interesting enough to add value to this collection as well. Anyone looking for echoes of the more accessible psychedelic sounds of 1966 and 1967 could do a lot worse than this 75-minute compilation. The material runs the gamut from folk-rock ("Mr. Tambourine Man," "I Shall Be Released"), psychedelia ("Hey Joe"), and elegant pop/rock ("Butterfly") to attempts at white soul ("Take a Piece of My Heart"). Not all of it works -- "Take a Piece of My Heart" was a much more powerful track on stage -- but most of it does, and it's difficult to find fault with the group's three-part harmonies or their generally upbeat, rousing approach to music making, which somewhat recalls the Tremeloes. ~ Bruce Eder|