This release includes not only the full length album “Why The Long Face”, but also their live 1996 album Eclectic, plus a huge array of bonus tracks and band demos, including alternative and acoustic versions of classic tracks such as ‘In A Big Country’ and ‘You Dreamer’, plus a whole load of rarities including Big Country’s cover versions of Alice Cooper’s ‘Teenage Lament’, Creedence Clearwater Revival’s ‘Down On The Corner’ and Neil Young’s ‘Hey Hey My My’.
In 1981, Barry Andrews and Dave Allen formed Shriekback. Carl Marsh joined the duo, and shortly thereafter Shriekback formed Y records. It was through Y Records that they released their debut EP, the classic Tench, in 1982. This was followed in 1983 by their debut album, Care. Shriekback were on their way. Now, in 2018, Shriekback are back with their first studio album since 2015’s Without Real String Or Fish. As with that album, the line-up is Barry Andrews, Carl Marsh and Martyn Bakerr (drums) who has been working with the band since 1984 providing loops and drums. Allen left the band in 1986. Shriekback became a collective, of sorts, based around the trio of Marsh, Andrews and Baker.
While Jimmy Hughes' second album (from 1967) was titled Why Not Tonight?, this CD is more an expanded version of that LP rather than a straight reissue. The first ten tracks are indeed the Why Not Tonight? album in its original sequence, but it's followed by 11 bonus tracks from the same era, essentially doubling the length of the original LP and adding historical liner notes. Hughes isn't much known outside the soul collector world for anything besides his 1964 hit "Steal Away," but this is a quite solid collection of mid-'60s Southern soul.