Colossal Youth & Collected Works
by Young Marble Giants

Album details

US: 11 September 2007 on Atlantic
UK: 9 July 2007 on Domino

This 3-disc set collects virtually every track released by the short-lived, drum-free, Cardiff post-punk trio from 1978-1981, including in full their one and only album, "Colossal Youth." Supplementing it are EP and compilation cuts and a John Peel session, plus liner notes from Simon Reynolds.

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The critical consensus

Although Prefix cannot unequivocally commit to an album that is "strenuously stiff," most critics have no reservations about labeling the album a classic. And MusicOMH advises, "You only get one chance to hear Colossal Youth for the first time. So if you’re not yet initiated, unhook the phone, put some time aside and revel in its tiny beauty." Dusted–and many critics–find that the material holds up quite well: "Three decades later, Colossal Youth & Collected Works still feels like the start of a brand new life." Exclaim! agrees, saying, "Colossal Youth sounds as important in 2007 as it likely did in 1980." And Treble adds, "While there are certainly many who have taken cues from YMG’s atmospheric new wave sound, their style remains distinctive and largely without peer."

Brian Eno is an oft-mentioned reference point in reviews of the hugely-respected Colossal Youth, but Dusted also hears echoes of Joe Meek and Lee Hazlewood. Like many reviewers, Gigwise zeroes in on the album’s deconstructionist nature: "What remains immediately striking is that ‘Colossal Youth’ is clearly an album of experimentation – a record of boundless artistic ambition that deconstructs song structure to its core principles." Filter hears "precise and elegant sketches" that amount to "primitivism at its most perfect." And the Seattle Weekly calls attention to the tension inherent in YMG’s minimalist style: "Because of this restraint, you keep waiting for the songs on Colossal Youth to explode, like ticking time bombs. But they never do."

As for the reissue itself (rather than just the original album), Exclaim! calls the new collection "thorough and, above all, necessary," while Gigwise deems it "essential," and The Guardian, "spellbinding." The latter publication adds that the material marks "an unassuming triumph, but a triumph nonetheless." Pitchfork notes that the extra material cannot live up to the standard set by the album: "Colossal Youth is such a bracing artifact, even now, that it begs for context; the other two discs demonstrate that the album is really all the band had to say, and the way they said it best." The Village Voice, however, appreciates the new material, declaring that "even demos of now-familiar songs can startle" in the context of different arrangements.

[Colossal Youth] is a record without genre, arguably outstripping The Slits in its disdain for rock structures or Wire in the way the songs appear to exhaust their ideas then stop dead, perfectly sated.

- Danny Eccleston, Mojo

Review roundup

Tracklisting and media

Disc 1 (Colossal Youth):

1. Right
2. Include Me Out
3. Taxi
4. Eating Noddemix
5. Constantly Changing
6. N.I.T.A.
7. Colossal Youth
8. Music for Evenings
9. Man Amplifier
10. Choci Loni
11. Wurlitzer Jukebox
12. Salad Days
13. Credit in the Straight World
    
14. Brand-New-Life
15. Wind in the Rigging

Disc 2 (EPs and other tracks):

1. This Way
2. Posed by Models
3. Clock
4. Clicktalk
5. Zebra Trucks
6. Sporting Life
7. Final Day
   
8. Radio Silents
9. Cakewalking
10. Ode to Booker T
11. Have Your Toupee Ready
12. N.I.T.A.
13. Brand-New-Life
14. Zebra Trucks
15. Choci Loni
16. Wind in the Rigging
17. Man Shares His Meal with His Beast
18. Taxi
19. Constantly Changing
20. Music for Evenings
21. Credit in the Straight World
22. Eating Noddemix
23. Ode to Booker T
24. Radio Silents
25. Hayman
26. Loop the Loop

Disc 3 (Peel session):

1. Right
2. Brand-New-Life
3. Final Day
4. N.I.T.A.
5. Posed by Models

Also on the web

• Young Marble Giants @ MySpace