"After a long rest on the shelf at Tom's House, the good people at Jung fu have agreed to unleash these 24 track "Cries for Help" from the vault." So the inlay booklet reads. I can't help but think it would have been better to have left them there. This CD, composed of old blink demos remastered, is unlikely to get anyone but the die hard fan excited.
As 'Carousel' opens, things are looking up; the base line is good stuff, but about 30 seconds in and where you'd expect definite guitars, we hear what sounds like someone playing in the next room. Perhaps blink walked into the wrong recording studio, I don't know. What I do know is that the versions on this CD are far inferior to those on 'Cheshire Cat'; 'Strings' being a good example, where the chorus sees Mark's decidedly dodgy voice wandering all over the place; it is obvious Mark's vocals progressed a great deal with time.
As with most tracks on the album, the guitars (though good in places - such as 'time') tend to drown out the vocals, evident in the aforementioned 'strings', along with 'Reebok Commercial'. There are saving graces, such as 'The Girl Next Door', which is easily in my opinion the most accomplished song here; and, for all it's shortcomings, 'Strings' is still a tune worth listening to. There are far too many songs which just don't cut it though, including '21 Days', 'Don't' and 'Reebok Commercial'.
To be fair to Blink, this CD was released with little or no input from them; and is intended for those who are just curious as to what Blink were like before they achieved stardom, but I still don't think its worth the price of a CD. If you wanna check out some early Blink stuff, go out and buy Cheshire Cat, as you won't be disappointed - stear clear of this though, unless you have to own every CD that Blink have ever lent their name to.
nick
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