The Pretty Things are a late 60s folk-rock band leading towards psychedelic. The lead singer sounds like a Beatles outcast, while his backups create harmonies closer to what The Who were doing at the time. Soundwise S.F. Sorrow's first few songs could easily fit on the albums from either The Beatles or The Who at the time. The electric guitar work contains a tinge of Cream. Basically S.F. Sorrow contains a mishmash of many of the great sounds of the late 60s.
The Pretty Things do have their own sound mixed in, but most of S.F. Sorrow is familiar. That's not a bad thing when you're talking about late-60s rock. It was a time when bands were highly experimental and a lot of new stuff to orchestrate with was making the rounds- new sound recording equipment and techniques, and new synth predecessors like the mellotron. There's even a song on here that features vocals similar to Axl Rose (at least to my ears) making it an early metal song.
About the only downside to S.F. Sorrow is the poor recording quality. For the most part it's standard for the time, but there are several places where individual tracks are garbled or drop out entirely. Maybe that's a product of listening to it on Rdio, but I doubt the recordings would be that badly mangled just due to uploading. It's still an excellent album. 4 stars.
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