Complete Recordings 1965-1968

The title of this compilation is a bit misleading in that the Master’s Apprentices were still active after 1968, but this 23-song-deep collection covers the Australian band’s best garage rock and freakbeat recordings. Following songwriter/rhythm guitar player Mick Bower’s departure in 1967, various line-up changes resulted in flowery hippie pop, progressive rock and proto-metal. “Undecided” opens with mod-friendly maximum R&B sounding like something spawned by the Pretty Things and the Misunderstood before the “Paint It Black”-inspired “But One Day” rocks with darker melodies. They turn Bo Diddley’s “Dancing Girl” into the kind of maraca-dappled rave-up that well-dressed teenagers on Carnaby Street would groove to all night long during swinging London’s heyday. Similarly, Chuck Berry’s “Johnny B Goode” gets the go-go treatment, not too unlike Shadows Of Knight’s hep take on Berry’s “Let It Rock.” Even more ambitious covers of the Beatles’ “I Feel Fine” and the Animals’ “Inside Looking Out” get cleverly covered — the former with a slow and sultry strut and the latter with a demure cool akin to the Creation.