The Sound Barrier - She Always Comes Back To Me/ Groovin' Slow

Mediocre mod-pop backed with killer popsike cut

Label: Beacon

Year of Release: 1968

A constant problem I have with flop sixties singles is how frequently their flipsides out-perform their official A-side. On occasion, it's not necessarily that the more buried work is lost hit material, but rather that it's of a higher quality and leaves me hungry for more by the group, and hoping there's a lost album out there somewhere. In other cases, I find myself thinking "Seriously? You left this to rot on the backside of this slice of stale Denmark Street leftovers?"

The Sound Barrier's only single is a definite case for the latter phenomenon. The almost never-heard "She Always Comes Back To Me" isn't necessarily a bad tune, but is hampered by a somewhat uncertain, limp performance by the group. In the hands of Geno Washington or a Motown recording artist, it might have cut it, but here the vocals strain to be soulful without success, and the backing is too loose for its own good. What this track needed was intensity and conviction, and what it gets is a fairweather approach. I doubt the woman in question actually came back, and they sound more deluded about the chances of her returning than anything else ("Maybe that's the point" - a voice).

Lurking on the B-side, however, is the Small Faces and Traffic aping "Groovin' Slow" and this is a complete delight, sounding far more powerful and demanding on vinyl than on any bootleg or semi-official psychedelic compilation it's appeared on over the last twenty years. Pitched somewhere between "Lazy Sunday" and "Hole In My Shoe", it's a red blooded cockney walkabout through city life which, had it been released at the height of Britpop, would probably have been welcomed as a knowing nod and pastiche to the mid-sixties era. "Take-a-good-look-out-your-window-at-the-sidewalk-see-the-people-rushing-byyyyyyy" the vocalist bleats at breakneck speed in the first few seconds, and the hippified, contemplative chorus eventually cuts in after several more frantic lines, acting as a slightly psychedelic break between the speedy verses. 

The track fades on what sounds like a faintly piss-taking parody of "Hole In My Shoe" - the group sound as if they might be tittering to themselves at one point - and while I suspect tongues were firmly in cheek, it's marvellous pop which is clearly up to its gills in the summer of love era.


The group's identity has never been conclusively confirmed, but the "Tapestry of Delights" guide suggests that the line-up consisted of Philip "Fred" Reeves on vocals, with Philip Greenaway, Keith Hall and Jim Knell on other undisclosed group duties (online rumours suggest "one of them had a moustache to be envious of!", but I'm not sure which one that would be). The book guesses that they were a band of studio musicians releasing a one-off effort, and that would be my favoured theory as well.

Sadly, "Groovin' Slow" is widely available on commercial downloading sites, so I can't put it up for full download below, but you can hear it in full on YouTube.

Direct link to download both mp3s.