THE KINKS
The Kink Kontroversy (1965)
Pye/Reprise
Produced by SHEL TALMY

If you're hunting for treasure in the pre-FACE TO FACE Kinks catalog, look no more; you know the singles are all flawless and there are plenty of ways to get those, but unless you're a big fan, this is the album to get out of the first three. For fans of the early garage sound it will provide plenty of satisfaction; it's really the only Kinks album in that mold that isn't weighed down with filler.

You get the Kinks going all-out with impressive blues rock on the thunderous "Milk Cow Blues," attacking a killer riff on the very Brit-invasion "Gotta Get the First Plane Home," tackling grade-A Beatle balladry on "Ring the Bells" (I Can't Believe It's Not from HELP!), and upstaging the Stones with a sizzling "It's Too Late."

"When I See That Girl of Mine" could easily have been a hit single, and the same goes for the sleeper classic "Where Have All the Good Times Gone" -- brimming with a kind of anger the band had previously only expressed musically.

Davies converts will be searching for hints on KONTROVERSY of the prizes to come and they will find them in the sweetly delicate ballad "I Am Free," tinged with powerful piano and 12-string and an incredible vocal from Dave; he is equally haunting on the unexpectedly desperate "What's in Store for Me." The melodic "The World Keeps Going Round" builds to a roaring midsection with some confrontational lyrics -- "What's the use of worrying 'cause you'll die alone" -- typical of his later work. In fact, the Kinks are almost invariably skeptical of romance, their songs from "Fancy" to "Waterloo Sunset" celebrating solitude in every form, exemplified here by the delightfully deadpan "I'm on an Island." There is an important exception.

The album highlight and a career landmark, "Till the End of the Day," is the Kinks' most potent early single; its lack of chart success is criminal. The brilliantly raw arrangement defies the poignantly romantic lyrics for a juxtaposition both exhilirating and touching. More exciting than "You Really Got Me" and "All Day and All of the Night," this song is a firecracker that still retains all of its bombastic intoxication. On a record that closes with a Randy Newman-prophetic song called "You Can't Win," you can tell what song is more genuine by which one is infused with more passion.

Fans who've been deprived of the early Kinks will have no trouble growing with this even if they're not obsessed with the prime British Invasion music of which this is the absolutely perfect example (right down to the cover). And the folks who love the sound of the radio hits and want more will be in heaven. Is it slight in comparison to the works to follow? It's too much fun for that to matter. For all their stylistic shifts, the Kinks were always the Kinks.