The Troggs

Cellophane, the Troggs' third British LP, was never issued in the U.S., where most of the tracks were unavailable for more than 20 years (eight of the 12 cuts did eventually show up on the Archeology collection). For that reason, it was one of the more sought-after collector's items of the late '60s, but the record itself isn't that great. The group followed a more subdued, soft rock and folk-psychedelic path than they had on their earlier recordings, which wasn't necessarily a bad idea, as the hit single "Love Is All Around" (included here) proved. But the songs just weren't that good, and the band sounded kind of half-hearted. As it's done on its reissues of all three of the Troggs' erratic U.K.-issued '60s albums, Repertoire at least does collectors a big service by adding a heap of bonus tracks from singles, some of them infrequently or even never reissued on CD; the 1970 B-sides "Give Me Something" and "You" seem to be making their CD debut here. Still, the four 1969-1970 singles here are far from their best, though the finest of them (1970's delicate "Easy Loving") does at least come close to "Love Is All Around" as one of their best florid ballads. Even rarer than those singles are the final four tracks on the disc, the 1969 Ronnie Bond solo 45 "Carolyn"/"Anything for You" and the 1969 solo Reg Presley single "Lucinda Lee"/"Wichita Lineman." Unfortunately, there's a reason few have heard those efforts -- Bond's disc mixed bad vaudeville rock on the A-side with mediocre orchestrated pop on the flip, and Presley's "Lucinda Lee" also seemed to be a stab toward the middle of the road, while his strained stab at "Wichita Lineman" was nothing less than preposterous. ~ Richie Unterberger, All Music Guide