PARACHUTE

With Dick Taylor jumping ship, Twink departing to kick off Pink Fairies, and S.F. Sorrow performing dismally as far as sales went, The Pretty Things had plenty of reason to be demoralised. One more Electric Banana album of library music to re-charge the band's coffers later, and they got back in the saddle with Parachute. Slightly less ambitious than S.F. Sorrow, Parachute opens with a dazzling side-long suite about subjects ranging from social conformity to romantic failure to rainy-day misery and beyond, whilst the second side offers a range of different songs in a remarkable range of styles. Moving beyond the Beatles influence which the previous album had show, Parachute finds the Pretty Things on absolutely top form and doesn't deserve to be neglected in the shadow of its more famous predecessor.