WE ALL TOGETHER 2 ORIG Beatles Badfinger psych pop HEAR

$

70

We All Together were a Peruvian band who pretty much idolized the Beatles, more than even Badfinger.  In fact, they idolized Badfinger too, and Paul McCartney solo, and Wings.  Which isn’t a bad thing at all, really, and both their RARE albums show a heavy influence in songwriting.  Their first album, the easier of the two to locate, was slightly more shameless, actually including TWO covers of Wings songs AND two covers of Badfinger songs.  This album, “We All Together 2”, ditches the covers and concentrates on the band’s increasing ability to write original songs VERY MUCH in the style of their idols.  Which makes this second album a lot better and a lot harder to find.  You don’t have to try hard to spot the influences – just put the needle down on “Little Boy” and hear those sad lonely vocals accompanied by just a single piano, and imagine John Lennon born in Lima instead of Liverpool.  Thing is, We All Together are very thorough in their adolation – while some groups prefer John’s isolated psychedelia, and others prefer Paul’s bouncy music hall pop, We All Together do a good job of spreading around the adulation for nearly every Beatle (sorry, Ringo, the band does not cover “Octopus’s Garden”).  If “Little Boy” is pure Lennon, then “Silly Roadman” does the Paul schtick perfectly – a bouncy simple style of Beatlemania with a classic Paul guitar break, and screaming raw vocals a la “Oh Darling.”  “Cloudy Night” is nearly a dead ringer for one of Paul’s acoustic tracks on the White Album (“Mother Nature’s Son” especially), but the presence of some KILLER slide guitar brings the tune dangerously close to George’s solo track “Let It Down.”  Then you’ve got a song like “Beautiful People”, which does such a good job impersonating Beatles impersonators Badfinger that you’d swear this song was an outtake from the “Straight Up” sessions.  And yes, it really IS that good.  Finally, after covering “Carry On Till Tomorrow” on album number one, We All Together come up with a song worthy of Badfinger’s finest album on their sophomore effort.  This is power pop at its finest, a great catchy slice of vintage 70’s pop, and the deep guitar riff that muscles through the chorus is highly reminiscent of the great “Straight Up” closer “It’s Over.”  Then you find something like “I’d Like Her to Be Mine”, a sad longing orchestrated ballad that really doesn’t resemble the Fab Four at all, with its trippy seagulls and surf sound effects and vocals that sound slightly sped up.  For all its weepy, fragile beauty, this is something the Left Banke might’ve recorded, a stunning piece of baroque pop that fans of the Fading Yellow series would love.  And I really don’t know WHAT to make of “Follow Me If You Can”, whose guitar riff and sound are nearly identical to prog-rock giants Yes’s “Close to the Edge”, although thankfully, We All Together know enough to pull the plug after 2 or 3 minutes.  Still, it shows they might’ve had something other than Wings, Beatles and Badfinger albums in their collections.  And may have been a portent of things to come, had there been a We All Together 3.  Assuming Roger Dean was available to design the cover. 

This is a RARE original pressing on the Peru MAG label.  Cover's in nice shape, has a few lamination crinkles but overall REAL strong VG++.  Vinyl suffers from the cheap vinyl "pitting" issues common with this label - quite a few small "pits" in the vinyl that look like it was peppered with buckshot, but don't affect the play in any way.  As you can hear from the soundclip, the vinyl still plays rather nicely, strong VG+ with light crackle behind but not obtrusive.  And check out that BLATANT YES RIP!

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