Labels: No Idea
Review by: Alex Deller
Samiam fans often seem to fall into two camps: the pre- and post-major appreciators. The first lot, usually an older, statelier mob who’ve been around the punk rock block more than a few times will have you believe that there’s no touching ‘Billy’ or ‘Soar’ and that anything afterwards is just plain guff. Personally, I’m in the latter camp: born of a time when tracking this shit down wasn’t as easy as it now is and weaned on ‘Clumsy’ because you could actually pick it up in Our Price. A good chunk of the material on ‘Clumsy’ and ‘You Are Freaking Me Out’ “” from whence the bulk of these outtakes, demos and b-sides are culled “” still stands as some pretty untouchable stuff as far as I’m concerned, and while these versions are scrappy, scruffy and rough around the edges they’re still capable of affecting me the same way they did when I was a shit-for-brains teenager. True, they’re not pitch perfect and the sped-up ‘Bad Day’ sounds kinda weird no matter how many times I play it, but the band’s heart-on-sleeve melodic hardcore (think HÜsker DÜ, Rites Of Spring or Dag Nasty as loose points of reference) is still pretty peerless and, for my money, pishes over many acts who’ve come to be far more lionised as the years have worn on. Much of the band’s power rests squarely with frontman Jason Beebout, his voice conveying a real sense of conviction, pain and yearning as he belts out cuts like ‘Capsized’ or ‘Stepson’ and it’s almost as if the rest of the musicians are pushing themselves as hard as they can to reach the same level of intensity. As with any such odds n’ sods collection it’s a mixed bag (‘I Want More’ is interesting as a footnote, sounding like a grungier Quicksand while the two workmanly covers seem a touch needless and the live tracks, well, they’re there if you need ’em…) and hardly the direction you’d point someone in if they’d not heard the band before. But, if you’re a superfan, an ardent archivist or simply one of the curmudgeonly fuckers mentioned in the first sentence who’s at least willing to give their glossier material a second chance then, yeah, roll up and have at it.