Actually this amounts to a retrospective of Tony McPhee's pre-late-'60s career, including ten tracks by
Herbal Mixture (their two singles and several unreleased demos and alternate takes), and six from the three rare singles recorded by the early
Groundhogs in the mid-'60s. At that point
the Groundhogs were just another British R&B band, but they weren't bad; on their second and third 45s, they incorporated some soul influences and horns as well. The
Herbal Mixture material is more interesting, though, being decent period psych-pop with appealingly naive lyrics, even if their embryonic promise had little time to flower.
–
Richie Unterberger, Rovi