The 3-Way

The 3-Way

Editorial Reviews
Amazon.com's Best of 1999
The Lilys' music will instantly remind you of a handful of classic organ- and guitar-heavy combos from the '60s, but they're wholly unlike any other retro outfit on earth. Theirs is an alternate vision of '60s psychedelia. Neither pretentious nor full of itself, the stuff totally rocks, Nuggets-style, in spite of the disjointed lyrics and way-complicated song structures. --Mike McGonigal

Amazon.com
Thirty-six minutes of recombinant retro bliss, The 3 Way is a keen, direly enjoyable experiment. Replace the wide-eyed optimism of the Elephant Six clan with real and implied decadence, or add cojones to Belle and Sebastian's fey dandyism and voilà: Lilys. A smart British person wrote about their groundbreaking, delectable 1996 disc, Better Can't Make Your Life Better, that the Lilys sound like every decent '60s band--playing all at once. But these days the group leans more heavily toward the Zombies' organ-savvy pop or the Kinks' high-spirited, melodic bashing. Two ways in which Lilys' music differs crucially from the la-la-la singing, crunching guitar chording, and bouncy bass-playing inspirations of their influences are the song structure and the words. The 3 Way has more changes than 2112; even the short tunes sound like four different ones stitched together. And the lyrics range from wry, Cardinalesque observations ("Get off on death or don't get off at all") to a call for group nastiness to a drug addict's ode to the pocket mirror he uses to "huff lines until dawn." The last track is a lighthearted, banjo-and-toy-piano-accented skiffle wherein the narrator counsels: "Arriving later than original estimate / Pouring shots while the schedule came and went / Heal yourself till the rescue party's sent / Just keep your mind off your broken neck." --Mike McGonigal

The 3-Way