S.F. Sorrow

Deadly psych. I was vaguely familiar with this, but never listened properly. It fucking rules. A concept album about..... something, whatever. The guitars are heavy and clanging. Songs stop and start on a whim. Yep, fucking brilliant.

So they weren't commercially successful in their day and they are largely forgetton about now? As far as 60's psychedelic rock goes this is pretty standard and I'm not overly surprised.

It kinda feels like they forgot the story in the second half, but the music was great.

Fecking hell, another hour of monotone 60s folk music.

Late-60s rock opera reminiscent of early Pink Floyd that I somehow managed to never have heard of. I was intrigued by the track list, as one would be with songs named "Bracelet of Fingers" and "Death."

I'm more into this than I thought it was going to be when the generator served it to me this morning. The live performances of this at the time must have been quite... memorable, with the band pretending to be playing the music while tripping.

I'm tempted to give this a 4, I really am. It's a bit of a mess, but it's an interesting mess.

This one got off to a great start. For the first half of it I was loving it and thinking it’s gonna be a 4 or potentially even a 5 star. Second half it fell off a cliff though.

It wasn’t like there was anything terrible or anything. It just didn’t hold my attention and I had basically tuned out by the end. Bit of a shame after such a good opening.

Top Track - She Says Good Morning

eh. generous 3.

The same whimsical psychedelic style as all the other English bands from this year. Sing songy vocals straight from a nursery rhyme, quirky arrangements (flutes!) and melodies that all these bands have referencing medieval folk, magic mushroom imagery, and oh God, the album has a concept. These bands all simultaneously learned all the tricks to sound trippy, dialled them up to 11 for 2 years and thankfully got sick of it and/or fried out on acid - it's an interesting novelty artifact, but such a boring sound 60 years later. There are some cool fuzz guitar bits though and the parts where the vocals stop and the instruments freak out are fun (balloon burning, the journey, defecating grey).

This is so far sounding very Beatles-like. Also I'm listening on headphones and "Bracelets of Fingers" is making me go a little crazy because the sound keeps switching between my left and right ear. Honestly the Beatles are cool and they have a lot of good songs, but I'm not the biggggggest fan of their sound, so it follows I'm not the biggest fan of this sound. Some of the songs are really good though, when they diverge from that Brit-pop sound. The distortions are kinda cool sometimes, but can be a bit much other times, like on I see you. The audio through my headphones is weird in this album, halfway through it kicked in with a really full sound and then backed off and kind of cut out for a second. I have a feeling that maybe this isn't a song to listen to on headphones. The constant back and forth of sound is kind of giving me mental whiplash if that's possible. I genuinely wish I could give half stars on this thing because I wish I could give this one a 2.5, but I feel like I should round up because there are some songs that are quite pleasant on here. The ones I actually liked were "Private sorrow", "Death", and "Loneliest person".

Favorite track(s): Bracelets of Fingers, Balloon Burning, Trust, Old Man Going

A most honorable mention to the non-album single Defecting Grey

About a 2.5. It was fine. I love Psych Rock music, but there’s this very specific period from 65-69 where it feels like all these bands heard Rubber Soul and Revolver by the Beatles and tried to emulate the most psych parts of those albums on every song.

Beatles-like psychedelia, but they went beyond with a whole story. Some parts sound heavy for its time, and I appreciate the ambitious production (like they're scoring for a modern King Arthur), but it's not something I'd put on repeat often (3.5).

As someone who has spent a lot of time listening to psychedelic rock, I can’t believe I’d never heard of this band! This sounds like the version of the Wall that Pink Floyd would have wrote if Syd Barrett was still in the band. Or maybe what The Who’s Tommy would have sounded like if the Beatles had written it. And to top it off there’s some straight up early Black Sabbath-esque heavy metal added to the mix.

Не люблю таке, і взагалі щось тяжко йде мені "рок" музика 60х.

60s psychedelic rock … I’m here for this for the most part. It feels too long in places, and gets weary by the end, but it’s a pretty solid effort otherwise.

I know everyone makes the comparison to Sgt. Pepper's, with a sprinkling of Pink Floyd and the Who or what have you, but it really is apparent. I thought it was a nice enough listen. It's very familiar and of that time. There were some notable bits that stood out to me, in particular the moments of deep, layered FAT guitar. But it started to feel overlong by the end.

Very interesting concept with some ideas that sound way ahead of their time. They're also somehow the first Beatles "soundalike" I've heard that actually manages to pull it off, all while adding their own unique twist.

I'd be quite tempted to come back to it in the future, since I couldn't catch everything they were trying to do on one listen. For today, I was engaged the whole way through with a couple of fantastic songs standing out. It's almost a 4!

Standouts: She Says Good Morning • Balloon Burning • Defecting Grey • Mr Evasion

Before today, I’d never heard of The Pretty Things, so S.F. Sorrow was a complete discovery and a very enjoyable one.

This is a seriously cool album. It has strong echoes of the late psychedelic era of The Beatles, but with a rougher, noisier edge. It’s an easy and fun listen, full of fuzz, experimentation, and swirling ideas. You can tell how ahead of its time this must have sounded when it was released.

What really stands out is how creative and cohesive it feels. The songs flow naturally, and the band fully lean into the strange and experimental without losing the thread. It’s the kind of album that rewards repeat listens, and one I’ll definitely come back to.

Favourite tracks: Bracelets of Fingers and She Says Good Morning, both capture the album’s psychedelic charm perfectly
Least favourite tracks: None, everything here feels worth listening to
Album artwork: A very cool cover that fits the trippy late 60s vibe perfectly

Overall, S.F. Sorrow was a genuine surprise, creative, psychedelic, and far more enjoyable than I expected

Really good, and not heard it before. Heavy Beatles vibes, but there’s some other stuff going on here that’s pretty unique

Like discovering a secret Beatles/Zombies/early Floyd album. Really liked this one.