AFFAIRS OF THE HEART (LIMITED EDITION COLLECTORS DOUBLEPACK)

Affairs Of The Heart is a song co-written by Greg Lake and Geoff Downes of Asia. The song was featured on ELP's 1992 comeback album Black Moon and it was also released as a single that same year to promote the new album. The single exists in several versions, the present version being a limited edition collector's "doublepack" featuring two compact discs. Each disc houses four tracks with Affairs Of The Heart and Black Moon appearing on both discs. Better Days, also from the Black Moon album, is here as well as remastered versions of two classic ELP numbers in Fanfare For The Common Man and Jerusalem.

So far mentioned there is nothing that you don't already have if you have the band's regular album output, especially if you have the remastered CD versions with bonus tracks included. However, the real interest lies in Blade Of Grass, which is a non-album B-side. It was also use as the B-side of the Black Moon single and it was featured as a bonus track on some versions of the Black Moon CD (though not on mine). Blade Of Grass is a gentle piano instrumental that is pleasant enough even though it is very understandable that it was not included on the album. Apart from its value as a pure collectors item, this little instrumental is the only reason to get this "double single".

Per definition, this is for fans and collectors only. Most people will be happy with the Black Moon album, which in my opinion is a very good one.

The surprise is that the piece "Paper Blood" included only - as opposed to leading this selection.

The tune is the best Deep Purple riff based Rock anthem since Blackmore left that band. Except that is by ELP, probably written by Greg Lake. Emerson gets to play a few notes. but really, he is not the creative force here.

The rest of the tunes are quite fine in their own way, but "Paper Blood" steals the show and it should have been released in it's own right.

If you have the original albums, then this bunch of singles would be of no interest. Sitting on 3.5, knocking on 4 - when not compared with ELP's early works - these tunes are quite enjoyable, deserving some attention.