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John Tucker

 

Out now: ‘All Systems Go – The Neat Singles Vol One’ (Cherry Red / Hear No Evil)

Neat Vol.1

A real labour of love, this one. I wrote the sleeve notes to the original Neat CD compilations 20+ years ago, but I was never happy with the way the singles were split, with the A-sides on one CD and the B-sides on another, rather than keeping both sides of each single together. So, armed with a stopwatch, a pad, and a lot of patience ‘All Systems Go’ was pulled together. The four CDs in this set start with that original Tygers Of Pan Tang 7” ‘Don’t Touch Me There’, which set the ball rolling, and ends with NEAT 38, Venom’s ‘Warhead’. There’s a second volume to follow to complete the legendary label’s single releases but in the meatime, by my reckoning, what you get here is 27 different bands, 36 singles, 81 tracks and nearly 5 hours of music. Oh, and 4,000 words of text.

“Focussing on the As and Bs of Neat’s up-and-coming metallers, ‘All Systems Go’ features four CDs of balls-to-the-wall metal... A killer tribute to what was ‘Allegedly Britain’s No.1 Independent Heavy Metal Label’” – Fistful Of Metal

"The seven-inchers released via Neat Records were a near-failsafe guarantee of excellence... The focal tracks come from Neat’s ‘big names’... But the real gold is in the lesser-lauded tracks, notably Fist’s erudite ‘Name, Rank And Serial Number, Jaguar’s certifiably insane ‘Axe Crazy’ and White Spirit’s Purple-tinged ‘Back To The Grind’.” – Classic Rock (8/10)

 

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