Customer Reviews

Back from the Dead

5 star:		(12)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Okay...
the 1 hour bonus DVD with their fall on the floor laughing funny riffs on their music is worth the price of admission alone..
The music CD is actually a very cool revisitation with many familiar friends and new tricks/tunes as well....I picked it up for 9.99 and felt that even though the pop-up folder was a bit odd....that it was a very well spent ten bucks in the current economy where every entertainment dollar is to be considered.

I will admit the EW&F sort of treatment on Sex Farm and the Reggae version of Listen to the Flower People may take a bit of getting used to and make me glad to have the originals. On Short and Sweet ...guest axemen Steve Vai, John Mayer and Phil Cullen all combine to sound a bit like one Jeff Beck.

If you are a Spinal Tap fan...this is a great addition to your collection..(particularly the DVD) if you aren't....I'd recommend seeing the movie first...it will make this all the much more enjoyable and it is!

Fans! This is not a greatest hits album! This is a NEW Spinal Tap album! Rejoice!

This is really a very remarkable package for the money.

After the Black Album debacle, Tap must have decided to go all out on this one. In a package slightly thicker than a regular CD, you receive a very funny DVD with some new moments with Tap, a CD with a selection of a few reworked oldies and a great deal of new material, a booklet with lyrics and an extremely cool pop-up standee set of the entire band, complete with a festival audience.

All this for 10 bucks? Forget all the pretender rock stars who moan about their fans being screwed by the ticket brokers and the record companies while they, themselves, live off your money in shameless luxury churning out untenable crap.

Don't be put off by the inclusion of re-worked older material. These songs definitely stay true to the Spinal Tap mythos and are as valid an addition to the Tap legend as "Break Like The Wind."

I think St. Hubbins, Tufnel and Smalls all recognized they needed to thank the fans that have made them into unlikely pop icons and I believe they have released this fantastic little package at an unbelievable price to do just that.

The new material on the CD includes several selections from the Jazz Oddyssey (actual spelling) and although not appropriate for a festival crowd, on the CD they achieve the musical heights intended.

Welcome back Tap and thanks to you and your pals (Shearer, Guest and McKean) for this special treat. It's going to take a long time for this one to catch up to the number of times I've played the previous two albums, but I've already started trying.

LONG LIVE TAP!

Spinal Tap has proven again that you don't have to write new songs to have a great album. This collection of Tap gems has a few re-imagined tracks, re-cut by original (and recently re-animated) Tap members Derek Smalls, David St. Hubbins and, of course, Nigel Tufnel.

As they "tap" into their vast history as one of Britain's loudest bands, the band amalgamates their respective synergies into a vortex of rock fury. Not for the faint of heart, this band proves, once again, that rock lives on...again.

Well, I've been working with this packaging for about three hours now. It's very confusing. Look, you bend this tab that way and fold that piece underneath the flap and, then, you get that and I don't want that, I want a pop-up stage diorama.
And then, who's in here, it's a little DVD guy and a book. I think there's a CD in here somewhere. It's a complete catastrophe.

I have been an enormous Spinal Tap fan since I saw the movie in the theater as a teenager. There's no question that the lads from Squatney redefined musical satire, and while I loved the "Unwigged and Unplugged" live show that (sort of) supported "Back From the Dead", there are certain things that are best left untampered with. This album features a musical CD, a bonus DVD, and a cardboard fold-out diorama case, which, while cool, is very impractical.

The CD has a bit of new material, but mostly consists of new versions of Tap classics. While some of the new versions are amusing, in every instance the original recordings are better. "Jazz Odyssey" is presented as a three track monstrosity, and I enjoyed it nearly as much as the festival crowd did when it was originally performed on the "Smell the Glove" tour. The packaging is very clever, but not very sturdy. It folds out into a diorama of the band performing. It also makes extracting the CD and DVD from the case very difficult without damaging one or the other.

The genius in the package is in the bonus DVD where the band discusses various songs and issues that brought the band to where it is today. It contains about an hour or so of interviews, and fully justifies the price of the album all by itself. I gave the album four stars as the bar has been set so high by previous Tap works; this one didn't quite make it to 11.

Thanks to David, Nigel and Derek for blurring the lines of reality once again, at least in my mind anyway.

This one goes to twelve, turn it up until your eardrums bleed.

I guess I'm not the Tap fan I used to be. There's nothing bad about this album, but there also isn't anything great about it. "Short and Sweet" with its guest guitarists, and the funkified version of "Sex Farm" are both pretty good, but the remaining new tracks seem to fall flat. Similarly, the re-recorded versions of old songs don't sound any better than the originals.

Spinal Tap's most recent album mostly features remakes of the songs from the This is Spinal Tap soundtrack. Why would they choose to remake all those songs? Perhaps they thought that they could perform the songs better nowadays. If so, the were correct. These versions of the songs are superior to the original versions, in my opinion. Most of the songs have similar arrangements to the originals, with the exception of "Sex Farm" and "Flower People", which are done in a funk style and a reggae style, respectivly. There are a few songs which are not remakes of songs from the soundtrack, as follows:

"Back From the Dead" was written for the band's 2001 reunion tour.
"Jazz Oddyssey" is Tap showing jazz musicians how jazz should "really" be played. It is broken into three parts, presumably because the unedited version would be too hard to take.
"Rock 'N' Roll Nightmare" is around 30 years old, but has never been on an album before.
"Celtic Blues" is a short a capella song.
"Warmer Than Hell" is a song about global warming that was written for Live Earth.
"Short and Sweet" is a new song co-written by actress Annette O'Toole.

Besides the CD, there is also a DVD where the members of the group explain how they got the ideas for the songs. Long live Spinal Tap!

Back From The Dead is another great album from the legendary Spinal Tap. The primary thing that surprised me was that the music isn't just a thrown-together compilation of joke songs, designed to milk the Spinal Tap name. It's actually full of decent material that I've found myself listening to on multiple occasions, be it for a good laugh or for the indulgence in some good old rock n' roll. I pretty much expected a one-time listen and a funny diorama, so I'm understandably pleased that this was well worth the money.

The boys seemed to have lost their enthusiasm for being creative in their old age. Neither the DVD nor the "album" (if you want to call it that) give the true fans anything new to enjoy.

Thoughts on the songs:
The music tracks are either Smell The Glove tunes re-recorded/re-arranged or studio versions of "new" songs that they have been playing live for various events/concerts. It's nice to have a non-MP3 version of "Back From The Dead" and "Rock and Roll Nightmare" is great piece of Tap history, but really those are the only tracks I care to listen to. I'm with the other reviewers on this one, what we really needed was a sequel to "Break Like The Wind"...what a legitimately awesome album (sigh).

Thoughts on the DVD:
The most disappointing thing in watching the track by track commentary is the lack of energy in the interview performances. Even a bad joke can be saved by enthusiasm, but they're not even trying here. The only good riff is when they talk about Jazz music and David talks about Miles Davis covering up his trumpet, "What was wrong with him?"

Final Thoughts:
Owning all the albums and both DVD versions of the film, my love of Spinal Tap and their legacy is boundless. I saw Spinal Tap live in L.A. during the anniversary tour in 2001 after the Back From The Dead MP3 was released via Tapster and they were great. I just recently attended the Phoenix "Unwigged and Unplugged" show and was slightly saddened by the lack of energy although the set list was fun. I think it's just the end of the road for some brilliant performers who have finally worn out the joke. At least they gave us some great memories.