The Best we Could do

After the war-torn years of constant lyricist changes, constant critic fire in the recycled last albums, Black Sabbath has never exactly had the greatest of careers, but it left one hell of an aftermath. Almost as a calm after the storm, Sabbath has been consistently referred to as one of the greatest metal bands of all time, if not THE best, for, in a highly cataclysmic style, introduced heavy metal, completely attacking the scene. Sabbath is an example of a band that continues to draw endless fans, even after their downfall…

The sad fact about box sets is that there's always a fan out there who thinks they could have compiled a better one. An even sadder fact is that they're often correct, and the very notion of anthologizing Van Der Graaf Generator was a fraught one for that very reason. More, perhaps, than any other band of the early-'70s prog era, VDGG polarized their fans as much as the band's blatantly inhospitable sound outraged outsiders. They cut just eight studio albums, and all eight possess a wholly different character, all the more so since the band actually broke up midway through the sequence. Past compilations, then, sensibly dealt with one or other of those eras – The Box, contrarily, swallows the entire beast whole, 34 tracks over four stuffed discs, and it gets full marks for courage, whatever its other sins may be. …