The Chameleons UK

Another early live disc showcasing the band's brilliance in performance and with their material both? Indeed so, taken mostly from a 1983 Hacienda, Manchester performance originally on video only. Calling Live Shreds yet another Chameleons concert album is accurate while damning them with faint praise - in concert, the Chameleons' abilities were so unreservedly good that quite why they never broke through becomes a greater and greater mystery with time. Mostly featuring selections from Script of the Bridge, unsurprisingly, Shreds has the advantage of being the clearest and best mixed live show officially released from those years, even though at seven songs it unfortunately remains the shortest of the sets as well. Alternate titles for songs abound - "A Person Isn't Safe Anywhere These Days" is "Men of Steel" and "Thursday's Child" is "Years Ago" - but the songs themselves remain the same, powerful, evocative, amazing, played brilliantly by a band determined not to stink, ever. All it takes is a listen to "Second Skin," one of the best available performances of that song yet, to confirm that! As a bonus, three tracks from the Gallery Club live disc also appear here, as that album was never released in the United States. A final note: the song "Rock That" listed on the back cover is in fact a misprint rather than an otherwise never-released-elsewhere song - there simply is no track at all on the disc! ~ Ned Raggett, All Music Guide