Customer Reviews

Best of Atomic Rooser 1 & 2

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A lot of music for the money but nothing to crow about. If you know Atomic Rooster then you know Death Walks and In Hearing are their best. If your new to their music get those cds first. This is good for the fans to get some later stuff and live takes. Atomic Rooster gave us Carl Palmer and the wonderful Vincent Crane on keyboards. Very cool progressive music from the 70's. Enjoy.

A great bulk of this CD collection is from the self-titled album they did in 1980 for EMI in Britain, minus one cut ("In The Shadows"). It's not a bad record, but just as they had reunited, EMI threw money at them to make a record, and so all aspects of it were very rushed, and it didn't do anything when it came out. One of the best things about the album is Preston Heyman's hard, solid drumming. Paul Hammond eventually returned on drums.
Other tracks on here include subsequent single cuts and some unreleased material on disc 2, the best being the alternate version of "End Of The Day", and the non-LP cut "Throw Your Life Away".

"Vince Crane"...not a household name by any means...but he was the keyboard wizard of "The Crazy World of Arthur Brown"...remember "Fire"?? This band also included Carl Palmer, who would later departed for Emerson, Lake & Palmer. This is a great deal in respect to the amount of music for the money (2 CDs). The Volume 1 disc kicks off with a live version of "Devil's Answer" both different and interesting. Overall quality for the most part, on both discs, was good. I was somewhat dissapointed though, some of the tracks, i.e. "Death Walks Behind You", were actually recorded off a vinyl LP. It was complete with pops and cracks. At a couple of points I almost expected to hear the record skip!! But, because of previously unreleased tracks, re-recorded material and alternate versions, hardcore Rooster fans may want this addition to their CD library. For me, I'd be happy with just the "Death Walks Behind You" disc. On this CD set "Atomic Rooster-Vol 1 & 2", Quantity was GREAT!!...but Quality was just OK.