An alternately stalking and storming rendition of the Donovan tune, featuring Vinnie Bell on electric sitar and tabla flavorings from Ed Shaugnessy (!). Jazz/funk firepower minus the fusion wank.

If there is such a genre as psychedelic impressionist easy pop, this song should be its flagship. Dreamy, lulling, yet subtly disturbing, this seven-minute plus tune is like entering a watercolor painting.

"Dressed in black, he walks alone, a shadow in the night." The Shangri-Las death trip reached a powerful climax in this eerie song of loss and lingering. Funereal piano chords balanced by surging choruses and a closing spoken section that leaves you as weak as the sadly wounded narrator. If this one doesn't get to you, you ain't got a heart.

'Back to the Almost Arms again.' One minute, 29 seconds of pure heaven. Clapping hands, sugary-sweet bass, warm acoustic guitar, and perfectly stylized harmony demonstrate the greatness of this band. The Minders' ability to streamline their brit-pop sound into short cuts such as this says volumes of their talent. They have grasped the art of the rock strip-tease as we sit and drool and demand more of their form. A thousand and a half listens later 'I am hungry but still smiling' rings truer than ever, this is but the appetizer for their more developed works; taste this and you too will be The Minders' biggest fan!

'The Events Leading up to the Collapse of Detective Dullight' is not a song but a narrative story, and it’s funny as hell. The off-kilter character voices of the already brilliant stream-of-consciousness plot are cartoonish enough for their own Saturday morning series. When the detectives start their investigation nothing makes sense. There’s Jell-O, serenading butterflies, file cabinets, murder, catacombs, and all the seasonings for a hilarious dream. I am usually brought to tears when Detective Slots reads from his revered exercise in free verse titled ‘The Cause of Gauze’. I will supply you with a sample:
"Oh, the cause of gauze. The Manuels have fondled many memories from my lap though each memory has its own lap and swimmers swim laps. Even swimmers have laps however and while in that condition many require a delicate gauze."
If you hear this without purchasing the actual album, 'Coquelicot Asleep in the Poppies: A Variety of Whimisical Verse,' then you are being cheated. The dreams of this band are as colorful as the illustrations they provide us in their album sleeves. The 'Where's Waldo' pictorial representations enrich the listening experience by engaging us in a journey deep into the frying-pan brains of these madmen. In fact, this is a perfect introduction into a very strange world of psychedelicado. Think the Beach Boy's 'Smile.' The reaction of my friends after hearing this have been harmoniously the same, 'they have to be on drugs.' The truth is Of Montreal are not on drugs, they are drugs.