The Leaves

The Leaves’ sophomore album weaves blues, folk and garage together through kaleidoscopic shards of psychedelia to bring listeners All The Good That’s Happening.
On translucent chlorophyll green vinyl!

Fired by youthful exuberance and a well-rounded repertoire of musical fashions, The Leaves, by all rights, should have turned into major stars. Despite the fact the band’s second and final album, “All The Good That’s Happening,” parented no winning singles and isn’t quite as potent as the first disc, the platter remains terribly underappreciated. Tracks such as the moody stupor of “On The Plane” and the ping-pong pulsations of “Lemmon Princess,” which carries a chaotic circus-like air, are decorated in psychedelic decals, while “Twilight Sanctuary” features some hard-driving harmonica blowing chained tight against giddy blues rock jamming.

The band’s blues influences additionally prevail on honest recyclings of Jimmy Reed’s raspy-throated “Let’s Get Together” and Buffy Sainte-Marie’s candidly cryptic “Codine,” along with “Flashback (The Rhythm Thing),” a retooling of John Lee Hooker’s “Crawling King Snake” that morphs into an intense boogie woogie instrumental. A copy of Manfred Mann’s “The One In The Middle” weighs in as another blues based item, and “To Try For The Sun” is a stark and haunting folk ballad.

Snapping guitars, compounded by strong and solid harmonies give the album a strutting garage rock edge, where smatterings of offbeat arrangements and curious effects zone in on the freakier side of The Leaves. To call the album trailblazing would be stretching the truth, but there are enough amusing and exciting ideas to keep listeners awake and interested. Personnel issues, paired with lack of promotion prevented “All The Good That’s Happening” to be heard, resulting in the end of a band that died on the vine (pun intended) way too soon.

1. Lemmon Princess
   
2. The Quieting Of Oliver Tweak (The Stone Freak)
   
3. Flashback (The Rhythm Thing)
   
4. Twilight Sanctuary
   
5. On The Plane
   
6. One in the Middle
   
7. Let' s Get Together
   
8. Officer Shayne
   
9. With None Shoes
   
10. Introduction To A Cartoon Show
    
11. Codine
    
12. To Try For The Sun