Larry Norman And Hamlet - Siege At Elsinore

Reviewed by Mike Rimmer

Could this be the most ridiculous, pretentious concept for a compilation of Larry Norman songs? Norman's debt to Shakespeare? To compile or not to compile, that is the question! Is it worth suffering the slings and arrows of outrageous reviews by people like me questioning what you're churning out? Tenuous is probably the best word to hang this on! What do you get? A lot of stuff we've heard before on many other Norman compilations. There's the usual suspects, "One Way", "Pardon Me", "Nightmare" and "Let The Rain Fall Down". One highlight is the longer version of "Baroquen Spirits" which was also recently released on 'Maximum Garden'. "I Want It All" has a great groove and is a rarity worth hearing and supposedly influenced by Hamlet's famous soliloquy though it actually sounds suspiciously like a track from one of his brother Charlie's bands. There's a vocal version of "Butterfly" and an instrumental interpretation of "I Don't Believe In Miracles" featuring Dudley Moore at the piano. Ultimately it's another patchy Larry Norman compilation for rabid completists only. I love Larry Norman but ploughing through most of his recent releases, they seem to fall into two categories veering from endless pointless live CDs or cobbled together studio stuff featuring the same old same old and an occasional long lost gem. There are half a dozen essential Larry Norman albums that everybody should own but apart from the most devoted fan, it's easy to be swamped by the tsunami of these releases.