The Complete Recordings ain’t so complete anymore. This new and improved self-titled compilation includes six unreleased songs, and only four of them were the result of a reunion! Those four don’t quite reach the heights of the original recordings, but their sound fits in well enough that you’d never know they were recorded 20 years after the fact. The other two “new” tracks are alternate versions of previously released songs (and highlights) “For Ex-Lovers Only” and “Throw Aggi off the Bridge”. The former has a spoken intro of “Let’s burn this land!” which I like, even as the demos overall fail to live up to the original versions (2022 update: I now prefer the demo version of "Throw Aggi off the Bridge", which is much noisier). In all, the new material doesn’t harm Black Tambourine’s legacy, but it doesn’t add to it either.
First we get the good stuff, the ten songs upon which Black Tambourine’s entire mythos was founded (well, that and the post-Black Tambourine activities of its members). “Pam’s Tan” was the first song they ever released (on a split single called What Kind of Heaven Do You Want?, an instrumental track ironically named after lead singer Pam Berry. Their first release of their own was the By Tomorrow EP, and though the title track borrowed more than a little from 14 Iced Bears’ “Surfacer”, it showed a band already operating at nearly their peak. For a noise pop band, it’s a remarkably clean production; the bass and shimmering guitar are both just as audible as the squalling feedback (best example is on “Drown”) as Berry’s spectral vocals cut through the din. They’d repeat this sound to even better effect on “We Can’t Be Friends” (released on spinArt’s …One Last Kiss compilation). Nevertheless, their best work came when they dropped the shimmering guitar and fully embraced the feedback.
The title song of the Throw Aggi off the Bridge EP is the best of their short career. Berry’s vocals are a bit more grounded to earth, and the shimmering guitar of previous releases is gone, but it’s a great melody.