CKY - B-Sides & Rarities

CKY - B-Sides & Rarities
Genre: Rock/Alternative
Rating: 3/10

When a band releases a compilation album it is more often than not an attempt to fulfill a record contract that ties them to a label for 5 albums or an attempt to raise money for future recordings/touring. Whilst this is a good way for bands to avoid legal battles with record labels and can help avoid lengthy periods of non-activity it doesn't necessarily lead to the greatest products. Another issue with compilations especially those that group together b-sides and rarities is the quality of material. Essentially bands are best placed to decide what works and what doesn't anything that doesn't work will be scrapped or maybe put on the back of a better single making B-sides and rarities often a disorganised jumble of half baked ideas with little artistic value. Unfortunately that is exactly the problem we have here.

CKY as a band have produced four solid albums on major labels each with their own merits and strengths. The bands sound mixes together complex metal inspired guitar work with simplistic accessible song structures and melodic vocals. This has worked well on all of their studio albums to date. Alongside this the band have also put forward several alternative mixes of tracks for Jackass affiliated movies and Dvd's. A lot of this material wasn't included on the bands albums as they were merely the band goofing around playing stupid crass comedy backing tracks that fitted in with stunts and skits from the CKY dvd series.  "Fat Fuck" and "Santa Clause Is Coming" are perfect examples of this sort of material, whilst they may provide a cheap laugh once or twice without the visual slapstick provided on the dvd's the songs are dull and lifeless. It's not all bad though, tracks like "Halfway House (Original Take)" and the acoustic version of "Don't Hold Your Breath" are welcome additions to any completist's collection. For the most part the collection seems very lazy with several tracks simply seperated out from the long hidden track at the end of the bands first album. The main issue with this album is that not only is there a lack of coherent flow but the majority of these so called rarities have been widely available on itunes and other reissued releases.

Overall the album is one that only the die-hard CKY fan will appreciate. Even with that in mind it's hard to imagine a devotee wouldn't class many if any of the material here as "Rare". My recommendation would be to avoid this or simply cherry pick the best bits via itunes.

Download: "Halfway House (Original Take)"