Suburban Tribe: Recollection [Special Edition]

The Finnish rock group Suburban Tribe has been around for over 10 years already, initially being fronted by Jouni Markkanen, and the music being more on the mellow side. However, the millennium brought some changes, when the group signed with EMI and Markkanen was replaced by Ville Tuomi. From there on, Suburban Tribe got a heavier sound of their own coupled with Tuomi's distinctive voice.

Recollection is one of those "greatest hits" type of releases that are actually worth releasing... consisting of 16 Suburban Tribe tracks released between 2001-2007 along with two previously unreleased songs, this record makes for a great introduction to this group's music. Special Edition makes it even more so, with the rather comprehensive bonus DVD. The two aforementioned unreleased songs are ”Shock The Monkey” (Peter Gabriel cover) and rerecording of ”Sunflower” now with Ville Tuomi handling the vocals.

The DVD contains Mika ”Sepi” Seppälä's 69-minute-long ”Manimal instinct” document, shedding some light into the recording process of Suburban Tribe's Manimal and their tour during 2003-2004. Additionally, there are five videos: Complications, Oil And Water, Frozen Ashes, Silent Rain and Shock The Monkey.

All in all, I recommend this release to both existing fans as well as those new to the group. The only noteworthy complaints I have are the differences in the volume level between different takes on the documentary DVD. This makes the listening experience rather annoying as the levels might surprisingly jump by 10dBs... fortunately I didn't listen to the DVD on my headphones (I can't believe no one has properly mastered the audio on the DVD, but then again, I guess the DVD should only be regarded as an added extra with the CD being the real focus of this release.

"Frozen Ashes" video: