Great album packed with even more
splitendsjustifythemeans | virginia beach | 06/16/2005
(5 out of 5 stars)
"I love Leftfield, and was very glad when this bonus version became readily available in the US (for years, you had to hope someone on Ebay would have it). I won't bother reviewing the main album as there's already lots of reviews on its own page. I'll just stick to the bonus disc. Afro-Ride is cool little remix of Afro-Left, sounding quite robotized and more danceable in the traditional sense. This manages to pull off the difficult trick of simultaneously sounding just like and nothing like the original. Afro-Central is based off a very nice drumline, and features the various melody lines from the original floating around. Release One is a very drum-and-bassed out remix of Release the Pressure (although as a side note, it's actually a remix of the version that appears on the 1996 cd single, which is a slightly altered edit featuring new vocals, but is mostly left alone otherwise). Release Four is a laid-back groove-oriented version. Original (Live Dub) is absolutely fantastic, taking the original and stretching it out and making it even better. Filter Fish is a very uptempo song (it wouldn't sound out of place on the soundtrack of a racing game) and was probably only left off the album because it really doesn't fit with the rest of the songs. Now, there are two versions of the 2-disc Leftism. One has just those six tracks (I noticed in the album notes provided by Amazon that both list all 7 tracks, but one makes a specific reference to having only 6). One has those plus Cut For Life, which is otherwise only available on the vinyl sampler or the limited triple vinyl version of Leftism. It's mostly a more dancable version of the album version (it shortens the slower first half, and extends the dancier second half, so in total it's about the same length). I would recommend this, mostly because getting Cut For Life is hard otherwise. But because all the other b-sides are just as good, if not better (I think that Release Two beats out the versions here, and that Afro-Sol should replace Afro-Central), you should go get the singles as well."