THE ANTHOLOGY

Originally this was the reason why RTF reformed and did an extended world tour, following the rather pleasant bigger than expected interest for this remastered anthology. This reissue not only provoked a tour, but there will be a live Cd and a DVD coming our way in 2009. This compilation takes into account the classic foursome that recorded the "classic RTF era" that starts with Seventh Galaxy and ends with the GG-influenced RW album. As opposed to the previous compilation, which had taken the Farrell Moreira era album Light As A Feather and the three Polydor release, this one makes more sense (outside the label issues) by including Rmantic Warrior instead of LAAF. (ya sure yer' followin'???)

With the RTF records that were always well recorded, was there a need to remaster the original series of Cds. While the answer seems relatively evident for Seventh Galaxy (a resounding yes), this is much less the case for the Romantic Warrior album, which already had received a touch up a few years back. So if the remaster of HOFTSG gets five stars (the album is also represented in its entirety), the remastering of Where Have I only gets three stars, because only half the tracks are present here (although it is the better ones). Elsewhere on the second disc, if the RW remastering (here in its entirety) gets only four stars (it has been done before), No Mystery suffers from the same predicament than WHIMYB, and only gets four tracks in, which is three star job again, even if the better tracks are in.

By comparing the two anthologies, we end up in a no match: the remastering obviously a plus here is being offset by incomplete album track selection and losing some interesting bonus material on the older compilation. While this is the type of object that you'd rather offer after you've listened to it for a while, but you'll probably want to wait for the three (or four, depending on RW) new single-album remasters.

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