The group here recorded is the brainchild of Joseph Byrd, whose previous accomplishments have enlivened the Los Angeles underground scene for some time. Some kind of born leader, he has directed a remarkable series of "happenings" given at UCLA, one of the first West Coast blues bands (early 1966), and the Los Angeles New Left School (where this writer once taught a course on the history of rock, having to keep the records low so as not to interfere with the Marxism II course next door). This group, in occasional live performances around L.A., has drawn its enthusiastic following from a New Left-intellectual crowd more than from the usual rock-hip audience.

Equipped with Byrd's own keyboard work, a female vocalist, an electric violin, fretless electric bass, drums, and tape machine (Look Ma, No Guitar!) the U.S.A. plays a challengingly complex brand of art-rock. Though there is little overt use of classical musical idioms, these rock songs are organized and performed in a very classical manner; this is the only "underground" group I know of that reads its parts from score when performing live. But they really make it come off; those who come to know the group by this record may be quite startled to discover that the live performances contain everything that is on the disc, including effects.

Some of these electronic and semi electronic sounds are very beautiful and even emotional; those at the very end of the record especially so. Others are pure gimmickry. But what I find most satisfying about the U.S.A.'s music is the song material. The tunes are infectious, the harmonies adventurous yet eminently satisfying. And the lyrics (which Columbia has wisely printed on the jacket) are the best thing of all. America is told where it's at, uncompromisingly but without viciousness. "Stranded in Time" is a most sympathetic but most unsentimental song about growing old. "The American Way of Love" expresses much the same sentiments as the Mothers' "Brown Shoes Don't Make It," but more gently, and with far more lyricism. There is a really uncommon quality of lyricism throughout the album, including the thankfully apolitical "Love Chant for the Dead Che."

Yet with all these things going for it, this first album falls short of being really satisfying. Mainly I think it's because the strictly technical abilities of the U.S.A. are not quite on a level with their ideas. The voices are flat and uninteresting, showing little technical or interpretive power. The instruments perform their assigned tasks adroitly, but all too mechanically. Only one short passage really gets into an instrumental groove—the beginning of "American Way of Love," which also has the electric violin sounding uncannily like a post-Clapton guitar.

Obviously the U.S.A. is mainly into idea-rock. And the ideas are fantastic, but without interpretive power to match, the resulting music is cold and cerebral. Like so much 20th-century classical music. Too bad, because there is much happening here that should be spread far beyond the limited number of people who will really dig this album. (RS 10)

BARRET HANSEN