It’s a story as old as the pandemic: band releases album, only to find themselves unable to tour in support and opt to instead recreate it in a studio with just a film crew for company.
So it was for The Pineapple Thief, whose December 2020 livestream show was captured for posterity by director George Laycock and gets the full multidisc Blu-ray/CD treatment here. Laycock filmed the band in an empty room and used large lamps and dynamic camera angles to achieve a cinematic atmosphere. While the absence of crowd interactions is understandable, that sense of intimacy is the film’s biggest strength.
The 17-track set leans heavily on their then-recent album, Versions Of The Truth. Demons, Our Mire and the title track are faultlessly replicated without sounding soulless, as are older tunes White Mist and Build A World. Despite the inevitable absence of material from their distant past, Nothing But The Truth remains a must-own collection for PT fans, and the deluxe edition – with its extensive hardback book and abundance of documentary shorts, music videos, and drum cam footage – is even more worthwhile.
