TOTALLY OUT OF THE WOODS - THE BBC SESSIONS

What are these ratings for? I see many people rate this release as "essential". I can't understand that because it's definately a collector's item. The only previously unreleased song is "City Hermit". All the rest you can hear - in better mixes, the keyboards of "Way of Life" nearly made my ears bleed - on the original GG albums. Even worse, the two 1973 sessions are nearly the same, including "Way of Life" and "The Advent of Panurge". It would have been enough to remove one of these "double songs" and the whole content could have easily been packed on a single CD. If you are not a fan, you should listen to the other releases before you buy this one. It's, of course, good music (it's Gentle Giant, anyway). Yes, the songs were played live but there's no audience... It's not a "best of" because the versions are not the best ones available. And if you have the original albums, you will hardly find a reason to listen to this CDs often. However, this is only my opinion.