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File the Green Pajamas under “the best band you’ve never heard.” The Seattle collective, led by Pop mastermind Jeff Kelly, routinely releases jaw-dropping albums that melt in the ear like a lysergic caramel from the Sgt. Pepper chocolate sampler. Kelly’s brand of psychedelic Folk/Pop is clearly accessible but still suffers from a relative lack of exposure resulting in a small but rabidly cultish fan base. The PJ’s latest release, The Night Races Into Anna, is actually a collection of outtakes, compilation tracks, alternate versions and unreleased nuggets that have never appeared on CD over the past decade. These kinds of odds-and-sods sonic scrapbooks can be uneven affairs, but there are rarely any throwaway tracks kicking around in Kelly’s musical archive. In fact, in most cases, the songs on The Night Races Into Anna are songs written for a thematic PJs album that didn’t quite fit the theme (Kelly is a notorious conceptualist). As this collection proves, these songs stand quite well without a supporting concept, and show Kelly’s propensity toward a sound that balances The Beatles’ elegant Pop, eels’edgy Rock, Tom Petty’s heartland anthemics and the Dream Syndicate’s paisley head rush. (Brian Baker) Grade: A
This article appears in Dec 6-12, 2006.