Ox4 - The Best of Ride

OX4, the greatest hits disc, captures most of Ride's best moments. From 'Like A Daydream' to 'Black Nite Crash', it's all here including all the singles. Unfortunately, some of Ride's best songs were not singles and were left off the compilation. 'Cool Your Boots' is the best example, sadly ignored in favor of the monotone Creation cover 'How Does It Feel To Feel?'.

Firing Blanks, the disc of unreleased material, serves up a quite a few gems. 'Blue' and 'Everybody Knows', written by drummer Loz Colbert are excellent songs, the former even featuring Loz on vocals! 'She's So Fine', which later appeared in different form on Tarantula as Sunshine/Nowhere To Run, is an outstanding track that should've made the cut on Carnival of Light. Velvet Underground's 'New Age' is also covered here and Ride turns in a solid performance but Andy Bell's vocal suffers from the near absence of backing vocals. 'Tongue Tied' is the standout track here, and was dropped from Going Blank Again because record execs thought the album was too long. Overall, there is some outstanding material here and it is an excellent addition to the Ride library, but I'm sure there is some very strong material that remains unreleased.

The live disc, recorded at the 1992 Reading Festival is a good document of Ride as a live band. Ride were nothing short of lethal on stage and quite possibly the best live rock band, bar none, from 1991-1993. Many of the classic live songs show well here. 'Leave Them All Behind', 'Taste' and 'Seagull' in particular are excellent versions. As a collector of live music from Ride, I think the band could've chosen a better live set, perhaps from the 1993 Daytripper shows, which had Ride truly at peak form. Two songs were dropped from the Reading performance; John Lennon's 'I Don't Want To Be A Soldier' and 'Making Judy Smile'. The former was released on a Sire Records compilation in the mid-90s, but it is curious that 'Making Judy Smile' didn't make the cut. Overall, this collection is one that no music fan should be without. One of the best bands of their era, Ride deserves more recognition as an important and innovative band. Hopefully, the interest surrounding the release of this box set will lead to a second, live box set or possibly a new Ride collaboration. There is certainly enough material to put together an incredible album of covers. 'Eight Miles High', 'European Son', 'The Model', 'Sight Of You', and 'That Man' are all worthy of release.

Let's hope this is not the last Ride.

This is the perfect introduction to the band once called Ride, after a Nick Drake song on 'Pink Moon'. From the first three e.p.'s we have classics, 'Chelsea Girl', 'Like a Daydream' & 'Taste'- sounding as if The Byrds had heard 'Isn't Anything?' or 'Destroy the Heart'. Better, is 'Drive Blind'- one of the guitar songs of all time- a blend of Black Sabbath, Mary Chain/MBV and a 'How Soon is Now?'-style riff...From 'Nowhere' we get 'Dreams Burn Down' & 'Vapour Trail'- rexpective examples of the spaces Ride explored & their jangly-guitar pop...'Unfamiliar' was the lead track from 1991's 'Today Forever' e.p. and depended a little too much on the 'Ride formula'. The bassline is excellent, they did this song better as 'From Time to Time' (also included here). 'Sennen' would have been a better choice- though this collection focuses mostly on the singles...'Leave them All Behind' is a huge song- a blend of The Who, 'Physical Graffiti', 'Disintegration'& 'Drive Blind'. Also from the classic second album, we have single 'Twisterella' (still catchy as anything)& the palatial 'OX4'- where Ride were exploring similar terrain to that of Radiohead on 'OK Computer'. The selections from 'Carnival of Light' make sense- though 'Only Now' would have been preferable to Bell's Stones tribute 'I don't know where it comes from'...The mediocre 'Tarantula' is generally passed over- 'Black Nite Crash' is the sole cut & a very average one. Think 'Loose' by The Stooges or 'Spacehopper' by Julian Cope; the great guitar playing can't hide the fact there is no song here!!...Pity that the few decent songs from the final releases ('Nothing Lasts Forever', 'Sunshine/Nowhere to Run', 'Slave' & 'Deep Inside My Pocket') are looked over...As a primer, this is excellent. For the most part Ride were great- one of the best bands of the Nineties.

This boxset is excellent, though there are many more b-sides/ep tracks, sessions & live tracks in the vaults. Will we ever get to hear them?

This is excellent value & a souvenier of one of the best bands of the Nineties. "Take me for a Ride..."