The Brian Jonestown Massacre: Tepid Peppermint Wonderland: A Retrospective

The time couldn't be riper for a look back at a decade of The Brian Jonestown Massacre: This year's excellent documentary Dig! chronicles the strange muse of singer (and sole permanent member) Anton Newcombe, painting him as a mad genius who inspires awe even in those who've felt the brunt of his volatile personality—including his own bandmates and the members of friendly rival outfit The Dandy Warhols. Tepid Peppermint Wonderland: A Retrospective does the curious a service by cutting the prolific band's catalog—10 albums in 10 years, including three in 1996—down to a somewhat more manageable 38 songs. Though still a monumental load to digest, the two-disc set favors Newcombe's least wandering moments, arranging them in a slapdash manner, without regard to chronology or flow: "Nevertheless," a swirling pop nugget from 2001 that could have materialized intact from 1966, nudges up against 1995's dense, shoegazing "Evergreen." The juxtaposition eventually feels like part of the scheme, though, since every song shares one element: Newcombe's undeniable ear for a pop song, no matter how it's dressed up.

A gift that allows him to not only get away with musical murder, but to make it seem like a good idea, Newcombe's natural songwriting slope sends him barreling headfirst into places that modesty and lack of pretentiousness prevent others from going. He has no filter, but even the messes that emerge, like the ridiculous, faux-accented "All Around You (Intro)," feel strangely right. (Syd Barrett, the former Pink Floyd madman whose spirit shoots through the entire Brian Jonestown catalog, suffered the same pleasant malady.) And while the spontaneous outbursts and bizarre ego trips accompanying that lack of a screening process may initially draw the curious into Newcombe's orbit, his out-of-time musical trips have the potential to keep them there.