What does it sound like?:

Twenty years ago, the Grateful Dead’s ”So Many Roads (1965-1995)” box was released. On disc 5 of that set, an early attempt was made to show what a final GD studio album might’ve looked like, if it had been released in, say, 1994. It presented six tracks premiered by the band in live shows in the early 90s which never made it onto an album before Jerry Garcia’s death in 1995.

In many ways, this new set, “Ready or Not” expands on that remit. It has live versions of the six tracks included on So Many Roads, plus a further three live songs from the Vince Welnick era. Unusually, this is a single CD set. One disc. Just one. In GD world, that’s not at all common. Grateful Dead albums are always at least 3CDs, and of course, a couple of the monster sets have been over seventy CDs each. And the cover art of “Ready or Not” does not bode well, showing a couple of obligatory skeletons in silly clothes and shades. There are scores of GD albums with appalling covers, but I reckon this one just about takes the biscuit.

On the » Continue Reading.

What does it sound like?:

Full disclosure first. Shifting Buffalo, ITRW, is my friend Ben, so don’t expect an 1979 NME style hatchet job here. But…but…come back! This is really good so I’m sharing it here.

The origin of this album was an intensive songwriting day when SB single handedly wrote, recorded and mixed 10 songs in a day using the “A Shropshire Lad” poems as lyrics. This is a brushed up and slightly more polished version of that manic effort but still has a charming bedroom studio vibe.

The instrumentation is remarkably full band sounding given its origins, with a pallet of drum machines, guitars, synths, other keys and vocals. The general feel is a interesting hybrid of late 70s synth pop experimentation (woozy synths, drum machines, and doomy vocals) with perhaps proggy guitar overtones, though “The loveliest of trees” with its bucolic lyrics and acoustic guitars could easily be a Caravan outtake. Some tracks are more conventional rock workouts, “Wake” being a particular highlight. A.E. Housman could have been famous in the 70s.

Overall it’s a fun set rich in texture and variety and for an asking price of, oooh, nothing, it’s well worth checking out.

» Continue Reading.