upbeat tracks and features the brief injection of a mbaqanga guitar line. "Maids of Mount Cisco" features "funky grooves and jazzy keyboards", whilst the last track, the title track "Mellowosity", "displays the band's full palette of colourful sounds which create a complex landscape that begins in deep space, travels to an ambient New Age encampment where synthesiser, keyboards and bluesy guitar riffs set the stage for haunting bagpipe refrains and raunchy bass lines before the whole fades out in a shimmer of electronic tweakings." Critical reception The band signed to independent Celtic music label Greentrax Recordings who released Mellowosity in December 1996. The sleeve design, photo-montages and digital artwork were created by John Haxby. The packaging also features a painting by John Bathgate of Dun Studio at Borve and ironic thank you note to the Skye Bridge Company for its "financial atrocities". Despite being critically overlooked for some years after its release, Mellowosity garnered positive reviews. Dave Sleger of Allmusic rated the album three stars out of five and praised the eclectic array of styles on the album. Marshall Anderson of The Living Tradition was also favourable, saying that the album's "overall texture is thrilling and full of the unexpected", and noted that "this exciting melange of cosmopolitan sound sensations is clearly engineered for those who like to inject their music directly into their heads by wires - loud - and preferably while travelling through the scenic splendour of Scotland's west coast. Ideally from Skye, through Glen Cluanie, to Invermoriston." The Sunday Times were too favourable in their review. Craig Harris, also of Allmusic, later noted that with Mellowosity, the band "emerged as one of the funkiest tradition-rooted bands in Scotland." The album remains one of Greentrax Recordings' best-selling ever albums, and in May 1997, five months after the release of the album, an article entitled Peatbogacious written by Kenny Mathieson appeared in issue 167 of Folk Roots. Nonetheless, Greentrax Recordings, although pleased with Mellowosity, thought the album was "mellow", The change of direction that Faerie Stories explored lead to one review noting that "musically Faerie Stories is light years apart from their 1996 début album Mellowosity. Greentrax Recordings later included "Lecy MacAskill" from Mellowosity on an anniversary compilation album of songs from the label entitled Scotland, The Music and the Song: 20 Year Profile of Greentrax (2006). Track listing Lexy MacAskill (5:03) Eiggman (3:42) The Manali Beetle [F.F.F.f] (5:59)