Statement: The Complete Recordings 1977-1989 [Box set]

The Music/Lyrics/Sentiment is !BRILLIANT + BRILLIANT + BRILLIANT!

The POISON GIRLS' still sound as relevent now as they did in the 80's - (doesn't say much about 'improvements in society' but there you go!)

Think EARLY Chumbawamba (Pictures/Ballots), Crass (Stations/Envy) or Zounds etc & you're in the right neighbourhood.

The REALLY NAFF thing though is the repackaging of this new edition. It comes in a standard 'fat' jewel cd case with just one very skinny booklet (6 pages) with hardly anything in it and that's it!

I bought the original BOX set of this a couple of years ago (and stupidly sold it) - That was actually a REAL 'BOX' - made of thick textured red card & with a silver crow embossed on the front & silver lettering on the side etc.
That edition also has TWO VERY THICK and COMPREHENSIVE BOOKLETS with it (& I do mean HUGE): one has ALL the lyrics - the other has a DETAILED history of the band with masses of photo's and pictures of all the original vinyl album/single artwork etc. It also has the same skinny 'intro' booklet that comes with the inferior new edition.

The music of this new issue has not been re-remastered since the previous one and so absolutely there's nothing 'new' here: I can see only DISadvantages to buying this new version compared to getting the old one!

(I just bought this new edition & sent it back for a refund because I was so disappointed, now & I will wait & get the original 'BOX' release elsewhere).

I would figure that anyone looking to purchase this recording would already know the poison girls . To me they were a huge influence on my life , from listening to their recordings to seeing them live . To Vi's birthday celebrations at Glastonbury in 85 , then London in 95 . It seemed that whoever liked them was part of one big family .I would say buy this c.d simply because it contains everything , and on top of that it is beautifully presented .Long live the memory of the Poison Girls !!

Well worth every penny and more! This work really does deserve wider publicity and wider listening.

Mostly fronted by the gritty voiced 'Vi-Subversa' - who was in her late forties/early fifties at the time - with a vocal sound far closer to say Marianne Faithful on 'Broken English' than to the bland ranting of say Steve Ignorant from Crass. Poison Girls were more akin to Brechtian punk cabaret acts, such as the highly talented Dresden Dolls or Nina Hagen; like such acts, Poison Girls were multi-faceted - displaying far too much personality to be accurately categorised under same label as Crass, Conflict and Chumbawumba (- all of whom seem rather drab and one-dimensional in comparison).

Like the Dresden Dolls, Poison Girls expressed tender feelings as well as more violent ones. They sang about personal intimate thing as much as about greater political issues. Vi Subversa was a vivid, versatile performer - well-adapted to playing many different roles; in 'Old Tart's Song' she plays a prostitute, in 'Bremen Song' she is a witch, in 'Whiskey Voice' she is an aging alcoholic, in 'Idealogically Unsound' she is playfully flirtatious and wonderfully girly, whilst in 'Velvet Launderette' she plays a sinister Johnny-Depp-style Willy Wonka. Fantastic stuff. Dramatic, theatrical and highly entertaining. Great tracks all of them.

A mosaic of sound effects is interwoven into many of these songs; On the first album 'Hex' (German for 'Witch') - 'Bremen Song' begins with bird song and mantra-like harmonics, whilst 'Reality Attack' begins with the sound of supermarket tills etc. On the second album (Chappaquiddick Bridge) vocal sounds are played around with and tweaked more - ie on 'Underbitch' the word 'bitch' mutates into 'Spitz', whilst in 'Hole in the Wall' the words 'Seek and Hide' become 'Seig und Heil' etc. 'Chappaquiddick Bridge' conjures up a film-noir world of criminal mobsters, cold war espionage and nervous breakdown, whilst the third album 'Where's the Pleasure' has a maturer, world-weary vibe and is even more musically divergent - the opening track, (also called 'Where's the Pleasure') has echoing reggae-rifts. Other songs seem closer to folk music than to traditional rock and roll.

There are a couple of clangers; 'Bremen Song' on 'Hex' is brilliant until the theme moves from witches burning to the holocaust - at which point the song suddenly becomes cacaphonious. Similarly, the song 'Alienation' (on the second album) has a fantastic beginning - with stunningly strident guitars etc, but it grows overtly raucous towards climax, which goes on far too long. There's also an awful OTT sugary-pop-style song called 'Mandy is having a Baby' on the third album - a real anomaly on an otherwise very interesting and engaging album. The final LP - 'Songs of Praise' - has a more commercial feel to it - as if geared for the bland mass market, rather than the authentic underground from which it had emerged. Haven't listened to this final album much yet, but I enjoy the other three albums so much that it doesn't matter. This box set still gets and deserves a full five stars.

Incidently, the box set comprises of four albums plus singles and EPs - 72 tracks in all. Anyone who appreciates intelligent music will find some track of appeal and interest amongst this box set.