Much loved by the prog community, The Pineapple Thief haven’t gone hungry for glowing reviews over the years, thanks in no small part to the music collected on Give It Back.
Perhaps inevitably, though, this is far from your standard greatest hits compilation, but a reinvention of tracks from Little Man, All The Wars and Tightly Unwound, scrupulously chosen by drummer Gavin Harrison (also of King Crimson), who wasn’t in the band when they were first released. He and frontman/TPT central force Bruce Soord then reworked and rerecorded the final tracklist, adding a new depth and maturity, and sometimes even new lyrics, to works from the band’s infancy.
Their claim that they sound like entirely new songs is stretching it. But the title track, the first to be given an aural spruce-up, shows just how accomplished The Pineapple Thief were from the earliest days, its stern, Tool-like rhythm the rigid spine around which Soord’s swirling guitar work and downbeat vocals can stretch their explorative tendrils.
This should provide hours of spot-the-difference fun for fans.
