If you played Green's debut album for most fans of psychedelic rock, they'd doubtless have guessed the group was from England, and Green clearly deserved some sort of honor for so effectively disguising their Texas heritage in their music. Released in 1969,
Green leans far more toward pastoral folk-rock and baroque pop melodies than the lysergic freak-outs that were the traditional signifiers of Lone Star psychedelia, and the group's arrangements, dominated by massed harmonies, horns, and keyboards, rarely succumb to anything so crass as a heavily amplified guitar (though the song "Green" is an exception). Surprisingly, the bandmembers pulled off most of the horn and string work here all by themselves (with one Bobby Blood helping out on brass), and this is a good bit more ambitious and accomplished than one might expect from a self-contained band of the era, but the album's laid-back air sounds less trippy and more calculated by the time "Have You Ever?" winds to a close, and despite the beauty of Green's music, their sense of adventure tends to sound more academic than heartfelt, as if they were determined to bring the qualities of "real" music to a lower form such as rock & roll. Collectors of rare psychedelia and arty pop will want to give this a listen, but overall it's more of a curiosity than a genuine pleasure. [Green's 2007 CD reissue on Fallout Records includes four pre-album demos that feature a slightly heavier attack with more guitar, though it makes clear the horns and harmonies were already a major part of the group's approach.] ~ Mark Deming