RECORDINGS

B-Sides collections in any form always fill me with dread. B-Sides alone are usually good, but bundled together they often sound out of place and untidy. Porcupine Tree have tried their best to make this into an 'album' of sorts, and it has many good features. 'Buying New Soul' builds into a subtle 10+ minute masterpiece, Dissapear is a gem that would have graced any of their recent albums, and the 13+ minute version of Even Less sounds a bit strange at first (compared to the original) but actually works very well. The rest of the songs are good, without being spectacular. Effort has clearly been made to structure the song order to make it seem like an album, but compared to Stupid Dream & Lightbulb Sun (the albums that the b-sides were taken from) it doesn't quite maintain the high standard. That said, there is plenty of quality here and a wide range of stylistic experimentation that will keep the fans happy and may interest a few neutrals. Porcupine Tree are a band of undoubted skill and pedigree, and the quality of their b-sides only goes to further justify that claim.