Save My Soul

How did a band with such a ridiculous name end up being one of the most underrated mod acts of the '60s? Wimple Winch started as a Liverpool quartet playing mop-top guitar pop. As Beatlemania died down, the band members grew out their hair, changed the group's name from Just Four Men to Wimple Winch, and started playing R&B-infused freakbeat. The title track to this 1967 EP is astonishingly good. With proper promotion, “Save My Soul” could've easily contended with anything by The Who, The Action, The Small Faces, or the other top-shelf mod bands that were taking musical risks as the '60s inched toward the '70s. The song has a contagiously catchy slide-guitar melody that hovers over a sinister bass line as singer Dee Christopholus croons in a libidinous low tenor. But when the second chorus kicks in, the song erupts into a heavy R&B rave-up as Christopholus howls with a soulful desperation. “What’s Been Done” follows with trace elements of the band's former Merseybeat sound, before the Beach Boys–esque “Lollipop Minds” gets delightfully weird again. “Marmalade Hair” closes with sunny, kaleidoscopic garage rock