Their Own Way

In comparison with their brasher debut album, the Motions' sophomore effort was disappointingly sluggish and subdued. The emphasis was on rather lethargic soul-rock ballads, as if songwriter Robbe van Leeuwen was trying to find something that would get the same chart success as (better) British singers of the time such as the Walker Brothers. "Why Don't You Take It" was a pretty obvious attempt to capture a Drifters-like mood, and though the group occasionally got into a bluesy mode, the sound was surprisingly thin and the execution rather perfunctory. The biggest problem was that the songs weren't memorable, with the notable exception of the scorching "Everything That's Mine," now enshrined on the Nuggets 2 box set. That track is a mod masterpiece, with screeching guitar that's just as exciting as the early Who or Small Faces, and its appearance at the very end of the album is downright shocking, blowing the rest of the set out the window. This album and the group's 1965 debut, Introduction to the Motions, have been combined onto one CD on a 2001 Pseudonym reissue, with the addition of seven bonus tracks (all but one from non-LP 1965-1966 singles). ~ Richie Unterberger