lauantai 5. tammikuuta 2013

Boxes of Metal part 1

Long time, no see... or even an ocean for that matter.

Well, lots of shit has been resently stacked in my shelves so probably we should have a looksy.

Black Sabbath Under Wheels of Confusion (4 cds) is most aptly called an expanded, chronological "best of" collection with no rarities. A nice booklet and poster, but all in all pretty redundant stuff - and a semi-official box, so probably the band is not too thrilled that this exists. Starts from 1970, but ends weirdly in 1987 (and even though I consider Eternal Idol to be a good album, still a weird year to stop as I gather this box was compiled in the 1990s). Good band though and lots of great tracks. So... I'll go with 40/100.




Ozzy Osbourne's Prince of Darkness (4 cds) doesn't rate much higher I'm afraid. First two discs are, yet again, a chronological "best of" collection. Lotsa live stuff, three interesting tracks from Ultimate Sin tour I haven't seen on any official cd before.The cover songs on cd 4 are unnecessary, I did however enjoy Ozzy's take on the Beatles' In My Life and I got to know Arthur Brown's Fire from this box, so not a complete failure. The "With Friends" section offered a couple of laughs with Miss Piggy (!) and Dweezil Zappa (!!), otherwise very little to write about. All in all, I guess 45/100.



Uriah Heep's Chapter & Verse (6 cds) I haven't listened yet enough to form an independent opinion. The pre-Heep day stuff for me was completely new, but by no means bad. Some 80s and 90s stuff I wasn't that interested in. Disc 6 could have been a complete gig rather than piled from here and there, but all in all not a bad effort - it seems that the band and/or fans actually had their say and several musically interesting choices have been made. Heep were the working horse of 70s rock and Mick Box seems very down-to-earth and direct in his opinions, yet very likeable. The box set is a bit too huge, perhaps if they had concentrated only in the 70s and cut the number of discs to 3 studios plus one live... It could have benefited from that. Also the packaging looks, to my eyes, too bland and boring - what's up with the pieces of wood? However, no huge let-downs in the song material and an enormous quantity of quality stuff, so... I'll go with 75/100.

Thin Lizzy's Vagabonds Kings Warriors & Angels (4 cds, Earbook version) was a much more focused attempt and at the time it was released, offered not only a decent overall view on Lynott's projects, but also quite a few relatively rare b-sides and live versions (Just the two of us, Don't Play Around, Sugar Blues, Night in the Life of a Blues Singer to name a few). Unfortunately after its release, the new 2-disc versions of the studioalbums offer all(?) of these rarities and much more... So, a bit redundant, but heaven-sent in its time. Ear book version was cheap (15-20 euros) and the picture looks great, good pictures, an overlong essay but well bound. Definitely a good one, even if it slips once again on the "best of" side. I'd give it 70/100.



Kiss Box Set (5 cds, regular edition) is exactly what you would expect from Kiss. The early days heavily emphasised, lotsa beautiful, glorious pictures and marvellously packed cds in jewels... Too bad the book's binding is miserably and pages start falling out no matter how careful I try to be. But I guess they have to sell the deluxe version (guitar case) with some argument - the songs are anyway the same. Previously unreleased, great demos, a couple of rare live tracks and so forth. The first disc is great, from there on it's a steady decline. As an ex-fanboy of Kiss I still have to give this 70/100 for visuality and fulfilment of a few childhood dreams.


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