Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 9/10

There are not many bands or artists who would be comfortable with releasing a new set of songs in the same box as 20 of their previous hits and instantly recognisable songs, the pressure of comparison, of easily accessed contrast is perhaps a release too far for most groups to skip round. Having a best of is all right, especially if it does introduce a newer crowd to the table and have them bathing in what is effectively some of the great songs of the genre; but to put them alongside in the same packaging with a brand new experience, that perhaps is taking the point of dedication too far. Not for the Bellamy Brothers though as their new and old recording of 40 Years :The Album attests.

The biggest pickle in the pack though comes in the shape of where to start? If the listener is old to remember songs such as Let Your Love Flow, If I Said You Had A Beautiful Body (Would You Hold it Against Me), the satisfying Old Hippie, Lovers Live Longer, I’d Lie To You For Your Love and Jalapeños then naturally the aural delight in reliving these particular songs on a C.D. would be enough to entice Eve as she is about to take a slavering and game-changing bite from the poised apple to hold off temptation and tell the snake where to go and stuff himself.

However good the older material is, to start at that point would arguably provide nothing but a disservice to the music created for the band’s anniversary year and letting a coin decide or a game of Russian Roulette with pool or a night out under the stars wrestling the same snake that Eve should have taken to task for the future enjoyment of the listener is not enough to suggest either way, however in Disc 2, The New Songs, all the same feelings of bullish intrigue, of harmonies created by good fortune and hard work are there to be fully revelled in.

Much is made of the passing of time, of the differences and overwhelming similarities between now and then and in songs such as the topical Dinosaur Wine, Time Rocks On, Dyin’ Breed, the excellent Livin’ In Oblivion, Together We Have It All, The Right To Be Wrong and Texas Girls all grab hold of the past, shake its long tender hand and introduces themselves as the offspring of greatness but offspring with a tremendous future and songs that in the words of the Bellamy Brothers, let their own love flow.

40 Years: The Album is a double album of great sincerity, The Bellamy Brothers have once more struck gold in the music hills.

Ian D. Hall