DIED PRETTY
Outoftheunknown
by James Russell

Unfortunately I didn't go to Died Pretty's show at the Metro in Sydney this week (November 26 was the date), promoting their new best of collection Outoftheunknown, although City Hub selected it in advance as one of the forthcoming week's highlights. I found their appraisal to be a bit curious, though; not having the paper with me I can't quote the exact wording, but it was something like "how to give the same song a billion subtle and exquisite variations". If ever somebody damned something with faint praise, City Hub so damned Died Pretty. And perhaps that statement isn't entirely unwarranted, but let's be more charitable and say that Died Pretty have managed to attain a certain level of consistency through assorted line-up changes from 1983 to the present. Certainly, consistency is the dominant impression I get from Outoftheunknown.

Best of albums can serve a number of functions, the most important of which is probably giving a representative overview of the artist's career. Outoftheunknown serves Died Pretty splendidly in this regard. All of the albums are represented, from 1986's Free Dirt up to 1997's Using My Gills As A Roadmap, along with tracks from 1985's Next To Nothing EP and single releases "Stoneage Cinderella" and "Everybody Moves". Each album is represented by at least one track, 1991's Doughboy Hollow getting three look-ins with this splendid trio of "D.C.", "Sweetheart" and "Godbless". The tracks are largely arranged chronologically, though this order isn't strictly obeyed. Sony Records was considerate enough to lease the songs from the albums the band made for them during their ill-fated excursion away from Citadel Records, the label with whom the band have otherwise remained during their entire career.

If you're fast (or more likely if you're just lucky) you may also be able to pick up the album with an extremely limited edition bonus disc of B-sides, EP tracks, rarities, and unreleased material. Of the thirteen songs on the second disc, six fall into the last category; most of them date from 1994/95, with Shane Melder from Sidewinder providing drums. You may need to hurry, though, if you want the double-disc set; the bonus disc is limited to something like 1500 copies only, and may already be difficult to find.

Another function of best of compilations is to stir up arguments about what should've gone on the album and what shouldn't have, and no doubt Outoftheunknown will provoke debate of that sort too. Ones I particularly missed were "Caressing Swine" and "110 BPM" from Trace, and "Slide Song" from Using My Gills; no doubt other listeners would pick other songs, too. We might especially wonder at the absence of the band's first single from 1984, which gives the album its very name. And if they could fit in the 8-minute "Desperate Hours", why not the 10-minute "Mirror Blues"? On the whole, though, Outoftheunknown's tracklist is a worthy one, so there's not much need for complaint.

There's one other thing that best of albums can do, which is to act as a career tombstone as well as a summation. Instead of it being a "so far, so good" type of affair in the middle of a band's career, it becomes more of a "so far, so good, so long" thing. Not many Australian bands seem to last long enough to simply expire of old age, especially on the independent circuit, and I was worried at first that Outoftheunknown had been assembled as Died Pretty's epitaph sixteen years after forming. However, this apprehension appears to be unfounded, with guitarist Brett Myers recently announcing the band will start working on new stuff early in 2000; so fortunately it looks like Outoftheunknown, to adapt the line from "D.C.", is not just to say goodbye. Incidentally, if you can't always make out what Ron Peno's singing, don't worry; he admitted once that sometimes even he can't always figure it out either…