This Is Love Psychedelico

The album's title says it all - This Is Love Psychedelico is the introduction to America of Tokyo's Love Psychedelico. The band are exceedingly popular in their homeland with a pinball game and a line of coffees bearing their name. With several albums already under their belt, we Yanks are treated here to a best-of compilation of sorts with the songs having been culled from their back catalog.

Love Psychedelico are comprised of singer Kumi and guitarist Naoki Sato and the only hints of East Asia are when Kumi switches her vocals from English to Japanese. It may sound disorientating but the transitions are seamless. Most American listeners will not understand what she's singing but it doesn't matter because it sounds great. (Hell, no one understands what Yes' Jon Anderson is singing about and he sings in English yet his vocals still sound right.)

"Standing Bird" starts things off with an insistent guitar riff and a skipping beat ala Sheryl Crow's "All I Wanna Do" while Kumi's voice brings Dolores O'Riordan to mind at times. Despite these relatively modern touch points, there's also retro-sounding organ giving things a late-60's garage pop flavor. While "Lady Madonna" is in this same vein, things are really all over the map here. "Everybody Needs Somebody" has a more muscular guitar with a bit of slide acoustic thrown in for good measure and then "All Over Love" takes things into a thoroughly modern R&B; direction. Luckily Sato does some interesting noodling in the background on it. "Fantastic World" is what The Beatles would have sounded like if Poe were their singer in 1967 and it is one of Kumi's best performances on the album.

Stylistic shifts come at the listener so often, it feels like the band tried every variety American pop had to offer and this gives the proceedings a rather schizophrenic quality. Just when you think you're in for a good dose of catchy guitar riffs, you get a helping of pure pop like "Your Song" with its chorus of a thousand songs that you've all heard before. Kumi has a wonderful voice and Sato always hits the rights notes whether he's playing lead or just strumming along on rhythm acoustic but they would do well to stay away from funk as "Unchained" falls flat.

As the album enters the final stretch we get a half-hearted stab at punk ("O") which sounds like it was recorded with a single condenser mic for reasons unknown. "These Days" sounds improbably like The Dixie Chicks and the sloppy clap-along, "A Day For You", closes out the proceedings by veering perilously close to "Give Peace a Chance".

The problem is that, overall, This Is Love Psychedelico comes across as an ill-conceived mix tape with the band jumping all over the map and entering territories where more is needed than the ability to mimic the lowest common denominator. Still, Kumi's powerful voice and Sato's solid playing mean that Love Psychedelico offer some melodies that crawl into your head and just won't leave.