Service Mode

One of the group's better albums, despite coming so late in their history that it was ignored by almost everyone. "Hope," "Fire Brothers," and "Don't Cry for My Lady Love" are among the best songs the group ever cut, and "I Found Love" is one of the prettiest, most upbeat songs ever to come from any classic San Francisco band. Some of the rest is self-indulgent, but that's what this era of music was about - the guitar pyrotechnics of "Song for Frisco" and "Play My Guitar" make them both more entertaining than their somewhat bland melodies; the latter song, in particular, sounds like a Marty Balin/Jefferson Airplane outtake that would have been right on target about four years before the release date of this album…

"The Lost Box" is the last the album of Swedish pop/new wave band Secret Service, popular in the early 1980s. Disk contains unreleased songs by the Secret Service. "There are many more forgotten songs to be completed. Some very old and some not more then 15-20 years old. All together they are The Lost Box!" A must have for all Secret Service fans!

"The Lost Box" is the last the album of Swedish pop/new wave band Secret Service, popular in the early 1980s. Disk contains unreleased songs by the Secret Service. "There are many more forgotten songs to be completed. Some very old and some not more then 15-20 years old. All together they are The Lost Box!" A must have for all Secret Service fans!

In 1979, Ola Håkansson, a former vocalist of Ola & the Janglers and then a publishing manager at Sonet Records, teamed up with Tim Norell and Ulf Wahlberg to write a few songs that they submitted to the Melodifestivalen, a popular Swedish song contest. They did not win but decided to continue working together and changed their band's name from Ola+3 to Secret Service. Besides Ola Håkansson (vocals), Tim Norell and Ulf Wahlberg (keyboards), the original lineup included Tony Lindberg (guitars), Leif Paulsen (bass) and Leif Johansson (drums).

Musically, there is little to delineate the fifth long-player from Quicksilver Messenger Service, What About Me, from their previous effort, Just for Love. Not surprisingly, material for both was initiated during a prolific two-month retreat to the Opaelua Lodge in Haleiwa, HI, during May and June of 1970. The quartet version of Quicksilver Messenger Service - which had yielded the band's first two LPs - expanded once again to include Dino Valenti (aka Chester A. Powers, Chet Powers, and most notably on this album, Jesse Oris Farrow) as well as British session keyboardist Nicky Hopkins. The additional talents of Mark Naftalin (keyboards) were incorporated when Hopkins was unavailable…

Solid Silver is the last Quicksilver album to fit into the group's original time line - although this was really a reunion rather than an actual continuation of their previous work, reestablishing however briefly the classic core lineup of Dino Valente, John Cipollina, David Freiberg, Greg Elmore, and Gary Duncan. And the results are impressive, even at times glorious and soaring, and not just on Valente's compositions, which fill six of the ten slots on the album. His work is as good as ever, and the haunting "Cowboy on the Run" was practically worth the price of the album. But it's Gary Duncan's "Gypsy Lights" that opens the album on a powerful yet lyrical (and memorable) note, and in more of a pop vein than listeners are accustomed to from this band; David Frieberg's "I Heard You Singing" isn't bad, either, and is a lot closer to the band's classic sound…

Quicksilver Messenger Service - 7 Albums Paper Sleeve CD Vinyl Replica (1968-72) {2012 Strictly Limited Collector's Edition, Culture Factory USA}
EAC rip (secure mode) | FLAC(image)+CUE+LOG -> 1,95 Gb | MP3 @320 -> 653 Mb
Full Artwork @ 600 dpi (png) -> 1,05 Gb | 5% repair rar
© 1968-72, 2012 Culture Factory USA / Capitol | 24-bit remaster
Rock / Psychedelic

Deluxe Vinyl Replicas by Culture Factory constitute high quality reissued compact-discs which reproduce all the components of the original LPs and are their exact replicas in compact-disc size (5.3 x 5.3 inches), with authentic single or gatefold cardboard jackets and paper sleeves. In addition to the above, each compact-disc Deluxe Vinyl Replica includes a black finish CD complete with the original label to give it the look and feel of the original record album. The music is encoded using state of the art, high definition remastering in 96 kHz / 24 BIT audio.

Morphine - At Your Service (2009) [2CD] {Rhino}
EAC rip (secure mode) | FLAC+CUE+LOG -> 847 Mb | MP3 @320 -> 306 Mb
Full Artwork @ 300 dpi (jpg) -> 67 Mb | 5% repair rar
© 2009 Rhino / Rykodisc | RHI2 520603
Rock / Alternative Rock / Indie

Morphine's discography was cut tragically short, but with Rykodisc holding the keys to the vaults, and with a heck of a lot of unissued material (at least 60 tracks), the label released a second compilation of Morphine B-sides to mark the ten-year anniversary of the unexpected death of singer/slide bassist Mark Sandman. Like 1997's B-Sides & Otherwise, At Your Service is more abstract and challenging than the other studio releases available. Many of the songs here take a more free-form approach, potentially because they were never completely finished. Even so, the songs sound great, and with 35 previously unreleased songs, there's a lot to sort through and a lot to like.