The Fleshtones - "Forever Fleshtones" (Danceteria Records, 1994)

The Fleshtones often counted by many as a garage band. Musically speaking, this designation seems to be at least limitating. This NYC legendary party outfit, always were and always be a genius mixture of all cool things hapenned in rock & roll the last 50 years! I guess that's why they call their-selves 'Super Rock', right? Of course had (and still have) fuzz in their sound and of course they use a Farfisa organ, but... They always chose to cover R&B or Soul obscurities instead of 60s punk classics like all the other "80s garage bands" did. And of course their own material was equal in terms of quality and in comparison with the covers. 
Many of the Fleshtones fanatics have one thing in common with the so-called 'rock journalists'. They all agree to the fact that "Roman Gods" and "Hexbreaker!" were the best outputs the 'tones offered to the world in their long time career (almost 3 decades and counting!). Well, I'm one of the possible exceptions. Sure i adore both aforementioned albums, but what it's closer to my heart is "Forever Fleshtones" A.K.A. "Beautiful Light". As you already able to see for yourself, we Europeans got the Danceteria edition as "Forever Fleshtones". I did a quick google search for "Beautiful Light" and came to conclusion that the only differences the two albums had were the covers (the one's front sleeve the others back) plus a sepia coloration on the US edition ("Beautiful Light"). This masterpiece had as producer the R.E.M. axeman, Peter Buck and recorded in Athens Georgia with outstanding results! To tell you the truth, this thing alone made look R.E.M. with more sympathy. Anyway, that's a deeply soulful recording. Rootsy as usual but with a hoodoo voodoo vibe all over it. "Take a walk with the Fleshtones" it's the best ever Kinks rip off and "Whistling Past the Grave" picks not so secretly eyebeams on an another 60s British band, the Yardbirds, while "Beatiful Light" seems to have a southern soul warmness.  "Pickin' Pickin'" and "Push on Through" are the Soul stompers of the record and future participatings on comps like 2050's "Land of 1000 Dances Vol.56". The album's closing number, it's a psychedelic (yes psychedelic! - in the unique Fleshtones way, though) masterpiece ("Mushroom Cloud") and has an organ that sounding if it's sampled by a Human Expression or a Seeds old 45 single. All these and more can be found inside this record's heart. If there's one disc by the Fleshtones that needs to be immediately back in stock, that's "Forever Fleshtones" (or "Beautiful Light").
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Take a walk with the Fleshtones!