1st Album – UNIT 4 + 2***

Concrete & Clay/Sorrow & Pain/Couldn’t Keep it Myself/You’ll Remember/Cotton Fields/500 Miles/La Bamba/ You’ve Lost That Lovin’ Feelin’/Swing Down Chariot/Wild Is The Wind/The Girl From New York City/Cross A Million Mountains

The unimaginatively titled 1st Album was the sole LP release from the British pop group Unit 4+2. Now largely forgotten, they reached No. 1 in the UK with their own composition, the highly original Latin sounding Concrete & Clay. Later pressings of the album included their second hit You’ve Never Been In Love Like This Before.

“Their earliest work applied their smooth, multipart harmonies to standards that were blossoming in Greenwich Village. Their third single, Concrete & Clay, became the group's commercial high water mark. The single's bossa nova beat and Spanish-styled acoustic guitar runs were memorable then, and still sound unique to this day.”

“Unit 4+2 were a very underrated group, perhaps not wild enough to be as successful as their music deserved.”

“Their music was a blend of folk, pop and rock ‘n’ roll. Unit 4 + 2 made some entertaining music, but history will record them as a one-hit wonder. This LP is for those who are into sixties music and who want to explore its obscure backwaters.”

“A most peculiar idiosyncratic mix of six English guys with something like five-part coffeehouse folk harmonies, backed by driving percussive Latin rock, with a very distinctive south-of-the-border guitar orientation. All of which is quite evident on their big hit Concrete & Clay. I don't recall hearing any standouts on the remainder, but I do recall maybe a few that I couldn't stand.”

“Their big hit Concrete & Clay is a good and catchy 1960s pop song, but the majority of these songs sound dated and without profile. Even the rocking songs sound like they were played for granny on her 75th birthday."

“Hardly any other album I have heard from the 60s have more clearly 'one hit, the rest is filler' written on it. It must have been a bit of a shock to have a No.1 hit out of the blue, and that's always the moment when the obligatory LP appears. And it sounds like these chaps had exactly five minutes to decide what to put on it. The outcome is the usual something for everyone, nothing for anyone.”