Some tracks should have stayed in the vaults
03/14/2002
(2 out of 5 stars)
"This is not an album I`d recommend as a first Horslips album. It`s a compilation but not a `best of`. It comprises tracks that were originally released as vinyl singles, including different sounding versions of tracks that are already to be found on other albums, e.g., Dearg Doom(The Tain), King of the Fairies(Dancehall Sweethearts), and a version of Daybreak that sounds nothing like the(superior) album version(on Book of Invasions). This is more an album for the Horslips fan `completist`, although there are a few nice tracks (completely unique to this album) that would be of interest to a new fan too, such as, Johnny`s Wedding, Green Gravel, Oisin`s Tune, High Reel, Fairy King. The two tracks, Fab Four-Four and Come Back Beatles, released under the band name `Lipstick`, should never have been recorded, let alone included on a Horslips album!"
Not for completists only
J. Talsma | Amsterdam, Netherlands | 07/05/2006
(4 out of 5 stars)
"Lets start (mildly, that is) negative, just 40 minutes is far too short. I can listen for hours to this kind of music. Luckyly this fine band has made so many other great albums so really nothing to complain here. This one may contain left overs, outtakes or alternate takes but nevertheless I find these songs outstanding. After a couple of listenings you won't want to hear anything else. From rousing rock, with solid guitars, to traditional folk on acoustic instruments or vice versa, this is a dazzling array of very well crafted songs that grow upon you. Opener "Motorway Madness" is a real rocker, followed by some of the most beautiful Irish folk songs, sung or instrumental. "Green Gravel" is an astonising beauty, "King of Fairies" combines overdriven guitars with a more traditional folk feel, "Dearg Doom" is not very different from the one on "The Tain" album but highly enjoyable, and so on. Even the Beatles-pastiche "Come Back Beatles" is nice and recogniseable as an Horslips song, even as it is released under the 'Lipsticks' monniker. Only from the somewhat jazzy instrumental "Fab Four- four" I don't know what to make of it. The closer "Oi Sins Tune" is a fine Irish original tune, beautifully played. I wish many other albums are made so good. In the case of the Horslips there is no doubt about that."
Not bad for an odds-and-sods collection
John L Murphy | Los Angeles | 07/22/2006
(4 out of 5 stars)
"Probably only completists or "fans only" will collect this, but it does show, with an emphasis on the earlier and mid-point stages of the band. The band-remastered version brings out tiny details of breathing, ends of songs with instrumental snippets, and the wit of the vocals wonderfully. Perhaps more than their studio LPs, the rag-bag nature of this, recorded all over the place for five years or so for all sorts of purposes, lends itself to a sonic boost better by its diverse origins than a more consistent but maybe a bit less colorful studio set of tracks laid down at one time in one place?
It came out originally in 1977, when the band had 3-4 more studio albums left to go, so chronologically the latest tune here is a version of Daybreak from their 1975 Book of Invasions LP. Still, this does present a fair if ultimately --given the nature of its gathering up of loose ends--
random overview of the band's strengths and a bit more whimsy on the two lightweight if pleasant (attributed to "Lipstick") Beatlemania efforts.
Motorway Madness is pretty pedestrian--a just o.k. mid-tempo rock song without much discernible trad influence that I can hear, showing that without the fusion Horslips might have been at best a parochial boogie bar band...but it's the B-side of the song that made Ireland take notice circa 1971-2: Johnny's Wedding a debut single that showed how they'd blend folk strains with prog arrangements and rocking attitude. Eamon Carr's bódhran and percussion work deserves mention; his busking days with the poetic collective Tara Telephone predating Horslips show that perhaps of all the band he had the longest experience, and his musical contributions to the folk roots and rock verve stand out particularly well on this remaster.
Flower Among Them All appears on their debut LP Happy to Meet with slight differences--this single version I like better for its rawer but more delicate air; it and the fine Green Gravel, alternate versions of studio tracks The Fairy King, Dearg Doom, The High Reel, King of the Fairies, with an otherwise outlying Phil the Fluter are the heart of the album, as they all are versions of songs later on some of their best mid-70s LPs that best blended their hard-rock and folk-trad with energy and panache.
Daybreak and Oisin's Tune--which grows out of that immediately preceding tune quite nicely--again show alternate versions, and after the rather out-of-place pop Lipstick singles dutifully but awkwardly included, round out the LP well. Funny since I'd never have pegged the band as particularly influenced by the Beatles any more than other rock immediately preceding themselves. The vocal imitations (homage) to the Beatles on the CBB track do gain in appeal on repeated listenings due to their appropriate sweetness. None of the later 60s sound here from the Fab Four's five disciples. But the instrumental does little to spice up the LP, and it moves along undistinguishably as if (like Motorway Madness) to prove how "ordinary" Horslips if a conventional band could have sounded!
It's good to have the singles and alternate versions here, as some of them never appeared on LPs. I can't say that the versions of the album tracks here sound drastically different from those on the LPs, but fans with better ears than mine may disagree. With the exception of so-so Motorway Madness and the intruding if not intrusive Lipstick tracks, it stands up well as the odd man out in the series of Horslips albums besides its more polished partners. While lacking the cohesion of some of their thematic albums, it's worth picking up if you already know you like the band. In fact, I'd pick it before either unfortunately lackluster live album, by the way, as a sampler of their range; closer here (10 out of 13 tracks) towards their folk peak than their uneven but similarly ambitious pop."
