AMG Review of Lysergic Legacy

Mark Deming
All Music Guide

The Fuzztones were garage rock when garage rock wasn't cool...well, that's not quite true -- the stuff was always cool, but the Fuzztones were reviving the fuzzy swagger of classic 1960s garage style in the early '80s before the arbiters of hipness had decided paisley and Vox guitars were OK again and bands like the Cynics and the Chesterfield Kings began moving in similar musical directions. If the Fuzztones weren't the best of the garage revival acts, they were better than most, and they got there early enough to be seen as leaders rather than followers of a trend (though consistency was never their strong suit and they never made an album as good as the Cynics' Rock 'n' Roll, the Lyres' On Fyre, or the Hypstrz' Hypstrization). Lysergic Legacy is the second "Fuzztones' greatest hits" set to arrive in four years, following 2004's LSD 25: 25 Years of Fuzz and Fury, and the two discs cover much of the same ground -- 17 of the 25 tunes from LSD 25 also show up on Lysergic Legacy. The newer disc isn't as well packaged as LSD 25 (and doesn't include a bonus DVD), but the sequence flows better and it rocks with more consistent muscle, as well as featuring guest shots from a few first-era garage rock legends (Sky Saxon on "Get Naked," Arthur Lee and Sean Bonniwell on "All the King's Horses," and Mark Lindsay on "Caught You Red-Handed"). Overall, Lysergic Legacy is one of the very best Fuzztones collections to find its way into the marketplace -- Rudi Protrudi's sincere love for this music and willingness to play with bravado to the back row of the balcony is audible on every cut, and this brings together their best and best-known tunes in one convenient package. It's an excellent introduction to one of the key groups of the garage rock revival, and this will give most folks all the Fuzztones' music they'll ever need.