Sunday, 13 May 2018

Brewer and Shipley - Karma Collection


Rating: 3/5

Review:
Rather bland and uninspiring


I'm probably in an unpopular minority here, but after getting on for 40 years I don’t think Brewer and Shipley's work has lasted very well.

There are some very good things about this release: it's excellent value for four albums, the sound quality is good and I think it's great that they have just put the original albums onto two CDs rather than bloat the reissue with a lot of dodgy "bonus" material.  My problem is with the music itself, which at this distance sounds pretty bland and rather dull to me.  It's a pleasant enough sound which formed a background to a lot of illicit smoking in student rooms, but it's not really much more than that, I'm afraid.  Take their version of All Along The Watchtower, for example; it's a cosy, undemanding, sub-Eagles treatment which robs it of much of its mystery and poetic power – and that's how almost all of this release strikes me nowadays.

There's nothing actively wrong with any of it and at this price it may well be worth having a nostalgic record of some of the music of the time, but I was disappointed in how uninspiring I found it and I won't be listening to it much, I'm afraid.

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