Sunday, May 20, 2007

Black -n- Blue-Rarities, 2007

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It's "Leftovers week" here at my blog and here is the first offering.

This album just came out a few weeks ago and includes demos, live and previously unreleased material from this LA band. For all reviews this week I will go song by song to give you the best idea of what's on the albums. The first five tracks here are demos from 1983. I am unsure if these are the same versions that appeared on the "Demos remastered anthology" album or not because I have not heard that album.


1. Violent Kid-I always heard this one described as being a representation of a heavier sound the band had before being signed. It is heavy for them, but a little repetitious. The version of this song on "One night only-Live" from 1998 is a little better. Still decent though.
2. Sign in Blood-Another early track that never made it on an album. It's slightly heavier than much of their debut yet it's in the same style as well.
3. Wicked Bitch-Slightly different version of one the best songs from their debut.
4. Gold Heart-The sound quality is noticeably lower than the other tracks from 1983. It's an okay song, not really anything special.
5. Hold on to 18-Good song, but this version is almost the same as the lp version except for the sound quality.
6. Lickety Split-This one is from 1986 so I guess it was done during the sessions for "Nasty nasty". I like it a lot it has a real fun feel to it and it's fairly unique. It would have fit in fine on "Nasty nasty".
7. Serious Drag-This is the first of three songs recorded for the proposed "Hell Yeah"album in 2002 that never saw the light of day. It was billed as a reunion album, but Jamie St. James is the only original member listed in the credits here. Anyway this song is the best of the three.
8. So Long-The second track from 2002 is a bit more serious than their older material. It's pretty good, but not a lot in common with how the band sounded in the 80's.
9. Hell Yeah-It's an okay song, but just not a lot of fire or fun to it.
10. Autoblast [Live] and 11. I'm the King [Live] - These are great live versions of songs from the debut recorded at a show in Detroit in 1984. The only problem is they are the same versions that are on "Live in Detroit 1984" which I already have.




So overall it wasn't worth what I paid for it. Most of the best songs I already have or have better versions. If you have never heard this band before than I would suggest their self-titled debut or their third album "Nasty nasty". If you have all the studio albums and want more then I would recommend both the "Live in Detroit 1984" and "One night only-live" albums although they are little harder to come by. Really I would only recommend this album to completests and I would suggest waiting a bit and trying to find a used copy of it for a cheaper price. Still listening to this did cause me to pull out some of my other Black -n-Blue Cd's

6 Comments:

Blogger Allyson said...

It's too bad you didn't like this new purchase. I haven't picked this up yet...
I still might.

Allyson
www.bringbackglam.com

7:39 AM  
Blogger David Amulet said...

Can you still get the debut or is it out of print? (Yes, I'm taking the easy way out by asking you and not searching for it.)

-- david

9:12 AM  
Blogger aXe mAn said...

I am a Black N Blue fan, so I might pick it up....

11:35 AM  
Blogger bob_vinyl said...

I have two Black n Blue albums and they're more than enough for me. It's not that they're so bad, but there's definitely better stuff from that period.

4:33 PM  
Blogger Metal Mark said...

David-It's an import and goes for about $20. However there is a box set called Collected. It has their four studio albums plus a live dvd and goes for about $38 at Amazon.

9:24 PM  
Blogger Ray Van Horn, Jr. said...

It's been so long since I had the BNB and Nasty Nasty albums in my collection that this was a refresher course for me and I loved it, though I recognize it for what it is.

4:17 AM  

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