Chamberlain - Five Year Diary 1996-2000 - CD (2003)

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 “œfull-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.