Valleys of Neptune

After 40 years, a number of ill-conceived posthumous albums, and countless bootlegs, one would almost have to be skeptical of a new album billed as "12 previously unreleased studio recordings -- almost 60 minutes of unheard !" The good news is that largely delivers on that promise. Even hardcore collectors will likely be surprised at how much of this album they haven't heard. But much of this material has been available before in some form, official and otherwise. Although there were tons of posthumous overdubs, elements of these very versions of and were used as building blocks for the versions on , respectively. Additionally, this version of was included on 2000's box set, the only difference being that s bass and vocals were replaced with s bass from a slightly later studio session. An excerpt of the tune was released as part of the radio program box set but that track, (basically an instrumental version of ) were all well-known to collectors. However, s fresh mixes make them sound all better than ever. are obviously well-known tunes, but these versions will most likely be new even to collectors. (later transformed into ) and are easily the rarest tracks here, and may well be surfacing for the very first time. The songs all sound mostly to completely finished; they definitely aren't just rough demos that got added to after the fact (although did do additional recording in 1987 for three of these tunes). Most of the tracks have multiple guitar parts, although probably would have replaced some of these guitar parts. It's not that they're at all bad, but some aren't perfect, and was a perfectionist. feels like just a studio jam (albeit a good one), and goes on just a bit too long with an unnecessary bass solo, but the rest sounds surprisingly finished and complete (and being studio recordings, sound quality is excellent throughout). While it doesn't rise to the level of his other studio albums, is a welcome catalog addition from a tremendous talent who died too young. ~ Sean Westergaard