Search - Alex Harvey :: Delilah

Great tunes, but mighty incomplete...

Mark Hurley | Long Island, NY USA | 07/27/2006

(3 out of 5 stars)

"Alex Harvey was the godfather of glam rock, mixing Bowie and Mercury's sensibilities with vaudeville and big band sounds, and giving birth to the era that spawned your precious GNR and AC/DC without falling into the pretensions that make such music all but unlistenable. The best part about SAHB is that Harvey is a brilliant man but never (ever) takes himself too seriously. That said, the multiple of incarnations of his hits compilations always seem to fall flat when one considers the wealth of tracks in his early career outside of SAHB and his solo work afterward. This compilation does that, and takes it a step further. There are tracks from the hight of SAHB's career that never make the cut, such as "Snakebite", "Vambo", and "The Tale of the Giant Stoneeater", not to mention the tracks seruptitiously released on The Penthouse Tapes and the underrated SAHB Stories. While the band's penchant for quirky covers is notorious, making "Delilah" - the swinging Tom Jones cover - the centerpiece of a hits album is insulting to the brilliance of the band, and Harvey in particular. Even as an introduction to the uninitiated, the record is stale and incomplete without the aforementioned tracks."