Circuit Rider

Never really wanted to know too much about the provenance of Circuit Rider’s lone album, as it’s the mystery of the thing that’s appealing, what with its haloed position in the higher aesthetic echelons of private press freakdom. But it can catch you looking at first, with a few opening songs that mesh ordinary Tim Buckley-esque folksiness to vocalist Thom Oehrig’s sozzled growl. Some people thought he was Jim Morrison undercover, which is stretching a comparison near to breaking point. But when Circuit Rider gets cooking, on the acid-lashed psych-rock of “Limousine Ride,” and the grunting raunch of the following “Billy Bad Billy,” well, everything makes some kinda non-sense. This is the kind of sensory dislocation that fans of ‘real people’ psychedelia look for, and Circuit Rider has it in abundance – eventually. A great biker-psych album that’s a real keeper.