
You don’t have to listen long to Bill Lloyd‘s new covers collection to figure out what decades his head is stuck in. Lloyd-Ering includes a reading of the Beatles’ “Across the Universe,” but most of it focuses on relatively obscure album cuts from major acts of the sixties and seventies, among them the Hollies’ “Step Inside,” Badfinger’s “Lonely You,” and Todd Rundgren’s “I Don’t Want to Tie You Down.”
On many of these tracks, Lloyd seems more intent on recreating than on reimagining, but he does do a fine job of conjuring up his source material. (A reading of the Byrds’ “The World Turns All Around Her” is one of several selections that sound almost indistinguishable from the originals.) The album, therefore, isn’t particularly innovative, but for fans of the musical era Lloyd loves, it delivers good fun throughout. Highlights include power-pop versions of the Bobby Fuller Four’s “Let Her Dance” and the Raspberries’ “Goin’ Nowhere Tonight.”