Buffalo Springfield remain rock’s most famous “before” photos, its most important stepping stone and its most crucial launching pad. But the three albums that Neil Young, Stephen Stills and Poco’s Richie Furay made in this short-lived psych/ folk-rock act, collected here on Rhino’s remastered box set, are worth rediscovering on their own merits. What’s That Sound? compiles stereo mixes of 1966’s Buffalo Springfield , 1967’s Buffalo Springfield Again and 1968’s Last Time Around , along with essential mono mixes of the first two. The records themselves are full of scattershot brilliance, showcasing the evolution of three distinct songwriters. The self-titled LP is mostly shackled to its era, drawing on obvious British Invasion and early garage/psych vibes: “Go and Say Goodbye,” to highlight one clear theft, sounds a suspicious amount like The Beatles’ country-rock gallop on “I Don’t Want to Spoil the Party.” A few anthems rise past the “period piece” label, notably Stills’ chiming hit “For What It’s Worth” and Young’s blissful ballad “Out of My Mind,” featuring some of the most divine vocal harmonies of its era. Buffalo Springfield Again is a more uniform piece of work, rising above their formative influences and forging ahead into harder, folkier and more deeply psychedelic sounds. (Still, Young couldn’t help but rip off the entire main riff from The Rolling Stones’ “(I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction” on “Mr. Soul.”) The band was disintegrating by Last Time Around, as the erratic track list proves—but even this overlooked LP is littered with gems, including Furay’s haunting, heavily orchestrated “The Hour of Not Quite Rain.”