Search - Them :: Time in Time Out for Them

Them's Psychedelic Swan Song

Cathy Herstedt | Portland, OR United States | 04/23/2004

(3 out of 5 stars)

"While "Them" or a band called Them put our more records after this featuring sole original member bassist Alan Henderson, this is the last record by a real group that had any ties to the Van Morrison led Them. Aside from the blistering original single version of "Dirty Old Man" mysteriously featured here instead of on "Now and Them" where the later, poppier and lighter version of the song appeared, none of this sounds much like Van's Them, but some of it is quite passable and enjoyable west coast style psychedleia from 1968. The band's primary problem was a lack of songwriting talent. They relied primarily on the "outside" Lane/ Pulley songwriting team for material on this record. The musicianship is quite respectable, though, and some of the songs, including the title track and "Waltz of the Flies" may get stuck in your head. Plenty of bonus tracks, including the original single version of "Square Room" (also featured on "Now and Them"), a very moody psychedelic piece written by the group, plus two more versions of the same song(!), and the aformentioned "Dirty Old Man", which is well worth hearing. Recommended, but mostly for fanatics."

One of the best rock albums of 1968

Burritoman "USA" | Pennsylvania | 10/16/2008

(5 out of 5 stars)

"To listen to this cd is to hear some great, great music. At this point, Them were winding down a very busy but somewhat unnoticed two years of pursuing a classicist psychedelic rock and pop direction. A prior album, a great deal of touring for broke throughout America, and the lineup dissolved, splintering the mighty Them again; original bassist Alan Henderson (the only member present on each Them record) rightly kept the name Them and reorganised, while several other members of this lineup stayed together for about two more years as Truth. Truth recorded demos but never received a release, until many years later (decades after the fact), but I personally feel their music is far superior to the earlier Them splinter band, The Other Them aka Belfast Gypsies. CdBaby has the Truth cd, recommended very highly.

So with "Time Out! Time In For Them", the band is captured at their height to date, and it's really a monster of a rock record. Only the Beatles crafted better psych, and that also means shredding the chords and - actually, this is a great band doing top-shelf work in the same realms of much more famous bands (Grateful Dead, Pink Floyd, Rolling Stones, Yardbirds, Jimi Hendrix, 13th Floor Elevators, Monkees, Iron Butterfly, Yes, etc.) and surpassing most of them in artistic reach, and this music certainly beats just about *any* psychedelic rock album of it's era. The fact that hardly anyone outside of Them's sizable fan loyalists has heard this (or any post-'66 Them) album is really a tragedy of sorts. An album this accomplished (great vocals, unsurpassed and imaginative musicianship, great originals and great covers) should have been one of 1968's biggest stories in the rock landscape. Some suggest that this psychedelic milestone arrived six months too late to have made any real impression- it's basically true that psych peaked in a commercial sense at the very beginning of '68; while there is validity to that argument, "Time Out! Time In For Them" should have attracted the attention of the psych community. But poor promotion and a strangely lingering shadow of Morrison added to their bad business experiences and the album just sort of...vanished, few copies selling and thus very few printed, and Them falling out of the radar.

Absurd. Them were, in my estimation, one of the greatest bands on the planet for their last 5 studio albums, and each track is awesome in it's own way - if you haven't heard any Them, or haven't even heard of Them, this is still a must-own masterpiece."

Them Psychedelia

Morten Vindberg | Denmark | 04/25/2010

(4 out of 5 stars)

"Like many others I went for many years and figured that "Them" after Van Morrison, was only a pale shade of the original raw R & B band.



At a certain point I ran into the album "Them Belfast Gypsies" which was recorded by early members of the group. It was actually an excellent album with a sound close to the original Them.



I was aware that some members of Van Morrison's Them went to USA and continued the group over there.



Bassist Alan Henderson was the man who took responsibility for continuing the successful group name. Together with other Them band-members Jim Armstrong (guitar / sitar), Ray Elliot (Keybords and Sax), Dave Harvey (drums) and the new Irish singer Kenny McDowell the group recorded two fine albums' Now and Them "and" Time Out! Time in for Them." The latter is the most ambitious of the two, an album that moves long distances, and only in flashes is reminiscent of the original raw blues expression.



The style is very influenced by psychedelia, with pretty extensive use sitar. Much of the album tracks were written by songwriting-partners Tom Lane and Sharon Pulley, and their style is much in the spirit of the time. Singer McDowell sounds different than Morrison, but he has a good voice nice which suits the spirit of the music nicely. Among the Lane-Pulley numbers, the folk-inspired "Black Widow Spider" should be highlighted ". The bandmembers have also contributed to the songwriting and the song "Just a Conception" is perhaps the most exciting of the album. This CD-release contains some singles as bonus tracks. These shine to some extent over several of original 11 tracks.



The single "Square Room" - is psychdelia as a mix of Yardbirds and Doors - a great group composition.



"Dirty Old Man" is probably the closest you get to the old Them sound - a little in the same vein as Gloria.



Generally these single tracks are more simple in their production, but in no way less interesting."