In the realm of crate diggin’ it’s more than worthy – on occasion at least – to pick up a disc that might hold a lone three minute piece of music that sets the mind a churnin’ for whatever reason. The remaining thirty whatever minutes of the disc might be useless drivel, but held in that one brief section of music is an experience that’s worth throwing down five bucks for. I have a Blues Image disc like that. And while I can’t say that it gets tossed in the rotation too frequently, hearing that one song every six months or so makes the purchase of the album seem worthwhile. All of this could be applied to a band that took its name from a Dylan Thomas work – Under Milkwood.

This group, drawing from the psych scene in the Bay Area and utilizing both  a male and female vocalist, worked during the late ‘60s as an ever expanding clutch of rock bands vied for contracts under the auspices of representing some new psych outcropping. Of course, Under Milkwood, like many of its peers, wasn’t too much more than an average bar band incorporating some extended soloing and hippie thruths into its music. For that very reason, the group’s lone, self titled album was recorded and never released.

Apparently, a few test pressings or otherwise un-issued copies of the album made their way out of the distro center and for only that reason do we today have available cd copies of this effort. But if that disc never made it outta the warehouse, psych fans wouldn’t be missing too much.

Beginning the album in strong fashion, the following “Changing Seasons” strikes a mid point between Grace Slick dominated Airplane and Pentangle. Needless to say, the song is an unwanted detour through a pastoral pastiche of allusions and hippie-clever metaphor. “Sandwiches Rock 'N' Roll” injects the Under Milkwood disc with an aggression that it lacks elsewhere, but again the track’s subject matter is rather slight when contrasted with the intricacies that dominate the album’s cover. There are worse things than a partially conceived rock song and “Sandwichies” isn’t the worst by a long shot, but it’s a lone beacon in the middle of the album.

As Under Milkwood attempts to reign it all in for a summation of this sub-par sludge, “Ballad Of The Spirit Of The World” crops up sounding like a lost Soft Machine take. And while after the proggy middle section of the song, it devolves into a contrived childlike playfulness, those brief moments serve to make this a worthwhile disc.

Discounting everything else on Under Milkwood’s disc isn’t too difficult to do and it’s in fact made easier by the group’s inability to properly balance its two inclinations – that bucolic folk and a bubbly instrumental rock posturing. If that were the only problem here it could be easily dismissed. The folk portions of the album, though, are capable of ruining a fine day. Jefferson Airplane may have been a pretty inconsistent act, but at least they had Bathing at Baxter’s. The same can’t be said for Under Milkwood.