another band (yes, another!) that i've had to play catchup with, though was aware of them from 'stupid questions' onwards, but first made the plunge into their backcatalogue with this one. figure that a good place to start on any artist are live albums or best of/ greatest hits comps, despite their obvious flaws.
did freak out a bit when i saw the words 'acoustic' first set, but that's a bit misleading. a lot of the tracks are from the 'strange brotherhood' album, not much of a coincidence since obviously most of the live set is going to be taken from the newest album at that time, mixed in with some old faves. best tracks are the haunting 'brave new world (2)', 'fate' (strong, anthemic track despite being acoustic), 'living in the rose', 'long goodbye' and a brilliant segue of 'wonderful way to go/ before i get old' - astonishing how well those things work sometimes. my fave though would have to be 'aimless desire', which captures perfectly a hopeless sense of wanderlust.
have of course invested in the rest of the nma albums and it's really good for the most part, seen them live too. also must say that sullivan is anoher underrated lyricist, and i think of him almost as an old-fashioned troubadour (sp).