An excellent two-CD career overview that provides a grand retrospective of Stiff Little Fingers' early years, deftly rounding up the best of their more recent material. It's marred, however, by its omission of the band's middle period entirely. Story So Far starts at the end, with three tracks pulled from the group's 2003 album Guitar and Drum, then gives us a taste of their live action with a powerful on-stage performance of "Johnny Was." From there, it's back to their early glory days, with the set chronologically culling ...
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An excellent two-CD career overview that provides a grand retrospective of Stiff Little Fingers' early years, deftly rounding up the best of their more recent material. It's marred, however, by its omission of the band's middle period entirely. Story So Far starts at the end, with three tracks pulled from the group's 2003 album Guitar and Drum, then gives us a taste of their live action with a powerful on-stage performance of "Johnny Was." From there, it's back to their early glory days, with the set chronologically culling five to six crucial tracks from each of the band's first four studio albums, concluding with a live version of their cover of "Love of the Common People." Folding in 1982, the band re-formed five years later, finally releasing a new studio album in 1991, but neither Flags & Emblems nor its follow-up, 1994's Get a Life, is reprised here. Instead the set inexplicably jumps to 1997's Tinderbox, finishing with a further trio of tracks drawn from Guitar and Drum. The song selections are superb throughout, but completists will decry the lack of any '90s representation. ~ Dave Thompson, Rovi
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