Natural Gas
Natural Gas (Digital Remastered 2010)
Review by Gary Hill
This is a digital remaster of the Natural Gas album that was released in 2009. OK, to clarify, the CD was originally released in 2009, but the album was first released in 1975. When they converted it to CD, they didn’t clean up the recordings at all. Now, they’ve done that. In addition, when I first reviewed the CD, I commented that sometimes less is more and that the extra tracks added for padding really took away from the release. Apparently someone was listening because they released this one sans bonus pieces, and it’s a stronger release for it. The sound quality is much better here. Those who purchased the original might be a little put off by having to pick up a new copy, but the augmented sound makes it worth it. Besides, since the other one has those bonus cuts, it is worthwhile as a collectible, anyway. If you didn’t get this one yet, now’s the time. For clarification, I’m going to borrow from the original review to give a little more detail in the next paragraph.
This album was originally released in 1975 and had this band stayed together to do more albums they would have likely been big. Certainly their heritage made them a supergroup. The band featured Joey Molland of Badfinger, Jerry Shirley of Humble Pie and Mark Clarke of Uriah Heep and Colosseum. With a lineage like that you can expect a lot and these guys delivered. For my money we don’t hear a lot of Uriah Heep in this mix, but the Beatles influenced sounds of Badfinger are all over this and there’s plenty of Humble Pie here, too. However you slice this musical pie, though, the result is some seriously tasty music. This is a great album that had been lost to obscurity. Let’s thank our stars that they’ve seen fit to release it. It’s worth the wait. And, now, with the better sound, it’s really great. I’ve copied the track by tracks from that original review for the sake of consistency.
This review is available in book format (hardcover and paperback) in Music Street Journal: 2011 Volume 1 at lulu.com/strangesound.
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