Pitchfork

The cut-out bins, used record shops, and studio vaults are cluttered with "lost" albums, but not every lost album is a lost classic. Still, the idea of the lost album-- some secret talisman long forgotten or overlooked-- is an irresistible hook. Here's something, it goes, that so few people have heard that it practically doesn't exist. Or better yet, here's something that only a select few will ever even understand.

Not that John Phillips is your typical elite fare. As a member of the Mamas & the Papas, he's been heard and loved by millions, and he's part of the very fabric of American folk and rock history. But thanks in no small part to huge quantities of drugs, Phillips fell off fast, and for most of the 1970s on up he wandered wasted and restless, his sole commercial success a co-write credit on the Beach Boys' unctuous "Kokomo" before dying of heart disease in 2001.

Phillips has too storied and sordid a history, but his solo work falls into the realm of "lost" albums. But sometimes lost music is lost for a reason. Phillips' legendary sessions with Mick Jagger, Keith Richards, and Mick Taylor, once they saw the light of day, largely sucked. Yet Phillips' 1970 debut John, the Wolfking of L.A. fit the bill perfectly, resonating upon recent reissue with a new generation of hipsters in tune with the album's lazy and suddenly fashionable California rock vibe.

Wolfking was the epitome of the California album, so laid back and effortlessly pretty it often seemed like making the album was the happy byproduct of days and nights wading into the water and partying out on the patio overlooking the canyon. Jack of Diamonds is a different creature entirely, which comes as no surprise: It's cobbled together from various early 70s sessions to approximate what might have been a second album.

These songs weren't lost so much as left largely unused, especially as Phillips moved on to Hollywood work and testing the limits of the human body. So consider Jack of Diamonds something of a "found" album, recreated from bits and pieces left behind like breadcrumbs pointing the way. That's OK. The Wolfking reissue was half unreleased material itself. But Jack of Diamonds is no Wolfking.

"Devil's on the Loose" is a fun start, but you can practically hear Phillips losing his focus, the funky wah-wah and (literal) vibes not enough to disguise his rough and ragged vocals. It's the dark side of Cali rock quickly showing its ugly head, especially as it gives way to the middling yacht rock of "Mister Blue". By "Black Broadway", we've entered dubious and shitty demo territory, listless even by the standards of listless run-throughs.