Thinking Plague - Early Plague Years (CD)

All Music Guide

Early Plague Years combines Thinking Plague's first two albums on one CD. Moonsongs was a 1986 cassette released the next year on LP by Dead Man's Curve. ...A Thinking Plague was first released on LP in 1984, then on cassette in 1986. Both were long out of print and impossible to find. The remastering is fabulous, giving these albums a sound far superior to what they ever had. Due to time limitations, a few edits had to be done. "Warheads" misses four bars toward the end, the improv "Collarless Fog That One Day Soon" fades out two minutes earlier, and the percussion section on "Moonsongs" has been shortened a bit. Nothing dramatic and all seamless, but one can't help but wonder why Cuneiform put the second album first on the CD. Fans of Thinking Plague and of American avant-prog bands like the Motor Totemist Guild, U Totem, and 5uu's will be delighted, but newcomers to this style should begin with In This Life or In Extremis.

- François Couture, All Music Guide