Valleys of Neptune

So what to make of this latest release, coming as it does 40 years after Jimi departed. Experience Hendrix are promoting this as an all new, unreleased studio album. Its far from that. Many of the tracks have been released before, either officially or bootlegged, but are just currently unavailable. As an album it is listenable (especially with the volume full on in the car), but the truth is this is a mixed bag - some magic moments, but a few not so memorable. Some tracks are nothing more than jams or try outs, and Jimi's vocals on some takes seem pushed (or shouted) and not the mellow tones we are used to on his classic recordings. Many tracks lack an effective end passage.

The opening track - Stone Free - is a bloody marvel and a significant step up from the original B side cut. It just flies. The title track is of interest, but it is clearly a work in progress and it would have been significantly improved had Jimi lived. Also a great lump of really special guitar solo has been editted out. Check out the bootlegs for the full story. Bleeding Heart is taken at an unsympathetic pace for a blues, but if you can shut that out of your mind then it does contain truly wonderful playing. The version of Hear My Train A-Coming is as good as any studio take of that song and comes close to the excitement of the live renditions. The same is true of Red House, although I'm not sure we needed another version of that song. Mr Bad Luck (aka Look Over Yonder) is another worthy track, albeit released before on Rainbow bridge in a very simiar form.

After that the quality rather runs out. Lover Man is just a noodling jam albeit at a different pace than we have heard it before. Sunshine Of Your Love is a nice tribute piece, but it isnt worthy of our man. What it does do is expose just how limp a bass player Noel Redding was. He totally wastes the solo opportunity given him here. Just imagine what Jack Bruce would have produced. Noel should have been more grateful for the opportunity to play with a genius. Ships Passing In The Night is nothing more than an early work out of what became the superb Night Bird Flying. Interesting to hear once, but ridiculous to release it under the banner of being some sort of polished masterpiece. Fire adds nothing to what we know of it already from earlier releases. Lullaby For Summer is just a jam around the Ezy Ryder riffs. And I don't know who makes up these song titles, this couldn't be less of a lullaby if it tried. Crying Blue Rain is a compilation of many oft heard riffs that Jimi was playing with, with a coda section loosely based on A Room Full Of Mirrors. It has the potential to develop into ethnic american indian piece, but again it is nowhere near finished. The two bonus tracks contained on some releases: Slow Version and Trashman, are both fairly pointless jams, and of course Experience Hendrix left off one track (Peace In Mississippi) saving for the B side of the derivative CD single, making sure that we buy two products rather than one.

Overall it is a listenable album, though nowhere near Jimi's best stuff. We all have to accept that after 40 years there aint gonna be some incredible find, perfectly formed in every way. If that existed it would have been out there in Ladyland 20 or 30 years ago. Tenpasteight

Altering tracks, editing, taking vocals from one track and transposing to another. All of the previous are done on this. The music? Try outs and jams demos and practices. Not complete and not essential this sullies the memory of Hendrix

Same old stuff! Not great performances by the man himself. I read somewhere that it was an all new studio album. I think there was like one new song on there and the rest are available in better versions on previous releases.