Battle For Seattle [CD]

Part of our Two CDs for £9 offer*

Oh Lordy - how good is this... am I really the first person to review it here???

A close friend of mine put me onto a couple of pre-release YouTube postings, luckily in time for us to catch the great man do pretty much every song at the Reading Festival on the festival republic stage. As a lover of Nirvana from the release of Bleach (and tragically being old enough to experience the joy of it when it first came out) and also as a lover of true-soul Roots Reggae, this was like a mad clash of worlds that seemed like a personal dream created for me and was without a doubt my highlight of the festival. Little Roy delivered every lyric as if it had come from his own heart, smiling, totally engaging with the ever swelling crowd and, most importantly, without any kind of lyric sheet in evidence at all. It seemed impossible, but the songs of a desperately torn and unhappy man had been filled with joy and love, pure and simple, and rest assured, the album has captured all of this in the studio. Songs like Lithium and Sliver probably lend themselves most easily to a brilliant reworking and the weight and depth of Come As You Are is simply fantastic, but for me the absolute genius of Little Roy and Producer Prince Fatty's interpretations is most evident with the darker songs - Heart Shaped Box and Polly are simply heartbreaking and devastatingly beautiful, delivered by a man who is feeling every word and allowing the listener to clearly hear every syllable. Having immersed myself in this record for the last 10 days, I feel the same listening to it now as when Little Roy finished his set at Reading - when the final notes of Lithium fade you just get the feeling that Kurt is resting a little easier thanks to this astounding project. So thank you Little Roy, massive love to you and all involved with this release, you have made me and a lot of people I know very happy indeed and given us a very unexpected and warm end to the British Summer, please come and tour soon!

I got the album on the vinyl and it sounds gorgeous, you should get it on whatever format allows you to listen to it as many times as you possibly can - I guess I'll end up having to get the download for the I-Pod, but it's currently sounding awesome on my old skool 70s separates. My true hope is that this sells well enough and touches enough hearts that someone somewhere will take a walk through Little Roy's back catalogue, re-issue it and give us the chance to buy his music without having to track down expensive original vinyl copies, first release; the "Prophesy" album please!

excuse the rusbbish pun in my review title...best I could do given the time in truth it is very much Nirvana dubbed.
This set of songs could have so easily been just a curious collection...one which you could knowingly take out from time too formulate discussion at a cocktail party(if that's your thing) much as a William Shatner cover album or Paul Anka's rockswings could be used...however it is much more than that.
The songs have a classic reggae sound that seems to hark backwards rather than forwards and that's no bad thing..it has created a timelessness maybe within a set of songs that were likely to be timeless anyway.
The Nirvana and Nirvana/Vaseline's cover translate well ..stand outs straight off for me where Lithium,Come as you are,Heart Shaped Box and Polly..songs that had a melodic groove anyhow but which really shine forth in this treatment.
For all that I'm not saying this songs are better than the Nirvana one's as they aren't but as interpretations they are pretty equal and stand aside the original tunes rather than surpass them.

Oh Lordy - how good is this... am I really the first person to review it here???

A close friend of mine put me onto a couple of pre-release YouTube postings, luckily in time for us to catch the great man do pretty much every song at the Reading Festival on the festival republic stage. As a lover of Nirvana from the release of Bleach (and tragically being old enough to experience the joy of it when it first came out) and also as a lover of true-soul Roots Reggae, this was like a mad clash of worlds that seemed like a personal dream created for me and was without a doubt my highlight of the festival. Little Roy delivered every lyric as if it had come from his own heart, smiling, totally engaging with the ever swelling crowd and, most importantly, without any kind of lyric sheet in evidence at all. It seemed impossible, but the songs of a desperately torn and unhappy man had been filled with joy and love, pure and simple, and rest assured, the album has captured all of this in the studio. Songs like Lithium and Sliver probably lend themselves most easily to a brilliant reworking and the weight and depth of Come As You Are is simply fantastic, but for me the absolute genius of Little Roy and Producer Prince Fatty's interpretations is most evident with the darker songs - Heart Shaped Box and Polly are simply heartbreaking and devastatingly beautiful, delivered by a man who is feeling every word and allowing the listener to clearly hear every syllable. Having immersed myself in this record for the last 10 days, I feel the same listening to it now as when Little Roy finished his set at Reading - when the final notes of Lithium fade you just get the feeling that Kurt is resting a little easier thanks to this astounding project. So thank you Little Roy, massive love to you and all involved with this release, you have made me and a lot of people I know very happy indeed and given us a very unexpected and warm end to the British Summer, please come and tour soon!

I got the album on the vinyl and it sounds gorgeous, you should get it on whatever format allows you to listen to it as many times as you possibly can - I guess I'll end up having to get the download for the I-Pod, but it's currently sounding awesome on my old skool 70s separates. My true hope is that this sells well enough and touches enough hearts that someone somewhere will take a walk through Little Roy's back catalogue, re-issue it and give us the chance to buy his music without having to track down expensive original vinyl copies, first release; the "Prophesy" album please!