Labels: Ignition
Review by: Mike Whelan
What? Five years? That’s only four isn’t it? Oh, five years inclusive, I see.
“Five Year Diary’ is a collection of hard-to-get-hold-of Chamberlain tracks, from old demos to live versions of album tracks, and even a few tracks that were never recorded and only ever performed live. As a closet Chamberlain fan this is all pretty exciting with all this new material on offer. But “Five Year Diary’ does fall into the old compilation problem of sounding a little disjointed, especially as the live tracks, which are supposed to be heard in order, are spread across both the CDs, making listening a little confusing.
But if the order could be improved, the quality of material offers no cause for complaint. From the “full-band” version of “Racing Cincinnati’ (as opposed to the album piano-led version) to the great live versions of songs like “The World Don’t Want Us’ (including crowd banter!), most of the tracks here are winners. Any old Chamberlain fans listening to this are guaranteed to be fumbling for copies of “Fate’s Got A Driver’ after hearing “Five Year Diary,’ and in this is one of the strengths of the double-album “” its quality of reminiscence.
Chamberlain probably won’t win any new fans with this posthumous release (compiled, I believe, by the chaps at Ignition), but this is essential listening for old-timers. The songs are all great (except for the new version of “Try For Thunder,’ which is nowhere near as good as the “proper’ version) and it is obvious a lot of thought has gone into choosing tracks that represent the band Chamberlain became, rather than the band they started out as.
I’m not usually a big fan of compilations “” but this one’s not half bad.