The Best of Spooky Tooth - That Was Only Yesterday

Spooky Tooth is often dismissed by music critics as nothing more than a Brit rock springboard — the band’s members went on to join Mott the Hoople, Stealers Wheel, Humble Pie, Joe Cocker’s Grease Band, Matthews Southern Comfort, Foreigner, and in 1976 singer Gary Wright had a hit with “Dream Weaver.” But this thoroughly enjoyable collection proves that they were an outstanding band in their own right, rooted in blues, prog and psychedelic rock ‘n’ roll. A mystical glockenspiel opens “Sunshine Help Me” before heavy guitars and a grinding organ come in like a close cousin of Deep Purple. Their weighty take on J.D. Loudermilk’s “Tobacco Road” sounds like late ‘60s Japanese psyche outfit Flower Travelin’ Band, and not even Vanilla Fudge could have made this cover of Crow’s “Evil Woman” more mind meltingly tripped-out. Even their sludgy rendition of The Beatles’ “I Am The Walrus” sounds like something that early Black Sabbath would have loved. Of course their own tunes, like the harmonious title-track and “Better by You, Better Than Me,” are even more hypnotic.