It's another in the seemingly endless barrage of lost "gems" being resurrected in this digital, file sharing age! As much as collectors like to believe that sharing these discs is a service - and it is in some ways - it kinda seems like a refutation of Darwinian evolution. If a band is around for a time and actually gets to make an album, but then seemingly falls off of the face of the earth, it seems as if that should be the ultimate fate of said group. Endlessly uploading any middle of the road rock album from '67-'78 only services one's ego in that whatever nerd does the work can claim some sort of ultimate, supreme supremacy. But, oh yea. Thanks for the uploading Tobruk.

With all of that moaning at the onset of this, one would be pretty swift to guess that I don't find this album, Ad Lib, all too remarkable. Let it be said, though, that I've not recorded an album, so I'm not an authentic narrator for this journey

But I do have two ears. And after taking a perfunctory listen to this album from five 'Mericans living in Brazil, I can say that while it's not anything that I'll listen to again, it does pretty easily beat out Hall and Oates. Probably the most endearing quality about this disc, though, is the fact that the organ used is one of the creepiest ever recorded apart from the Scooby Doo theme song.

"Theme from My Mind," taking full advantage of this mood setting device, amps up the psych quotient on the stew here. This second track, probably works out the best and the vocalist even has a bit of Beefheartian swagger to his growl. Unfortunately, the vocalist here isn't the main man for the group, which is effectively a bummer. Alongside his blues growl is some pretty dark, acerbic guitar noise. It's no Velvet Underground, but if the Doors couldn't cop a jazzbo for its soloing needs it might have sounded like this - an early highlight on an otherwise middling disc.

In 1972 Tobruk probably sounded as tripped out and ready for revolt as any other group of ex-pat Americans living the diaspora. But one than needs to wonder how they all wound up in Brazil. The music that the band set to tape incorporates nothing from their adopted homeland. And assumingly, since the disc is in English and not Portuguese, it didn't impact the culture too much.

That impact, though spurious to the albums validity, can now be wreaked. Ad Lib is sure to get some sort of proper repackaging since hitting the internets. That doesn't mean it should - or shouldn't. And I suppose, in the right situations this might all sound pretty decent: themed throw back parties, eating a fistful of bad acid, trying to impress other collectors, crying. The point is moot. Do with it as you please. But please note the fact that the cover art is roughly the equivalent of that second song - "Theme from My Mind" - all twisted, inviting like a free sample at Safeway, but ultimately only a lone image that sticks out from the mire of dated records from the '70s.