The Complete Eater

They Say...

Review by Jack Rabid, All Music Guide

Oh baby! Not only does one get all of the well out of print The Album, the lone LP from these seminal, funny, junior-high-age punks in 1977 (the Velvet Underground on speed), but this CD adds a total of 12 B-sides, compilation tracks, and three non-LP A-sides. Not only can you say goodbye to collectors' prices for their five singles and LP, but you can get two previously unissued tracks, plus this writer's favorite overlooked Eater song, "Point of View" off the unknown compilation The Label So Far. Even singer Andy Blade seems to have forgotten about this compilation in his liner notes, referring to "Typewriter Babies," also on that LP, as a "demo or outtake" along with "She's Wearing Green," which was an outtake and appears here for the first time. Eater lost their charm for many around this time, near the end of the band (just before second drummer Phil Rowland found his way to Slaughter & the Dogs) in 1978, but that's just dumb public prejudice, for it's proof of what a great band they were becoming (not just a fun one but a damn great one considering their age) when they packed it in, unpopular, as punk was shown the door by the media and fans. A shame, but it sounds great here. Just to hear Ian Woodcock's percolator bass (the fastest in the West this side of Rezillos' Mysterious), and how singable these songs are again, makes this a worthy purchase, even without all the extra tracks. And boy does this blow away the first posthumous collection released in 1985, The History of Eater, which contained only 12 of these 28 tracks! More fun than a barrel full of monkeys.