2004 PAST TO THE PAST

To coincide with the release of Wintertime, the best of CREAMVIII's first phase is remastered and published on PAST TO THE PAST.

REVIEWS:

“Past To The Past” is an excellent compilation with frank sleeve notes, plus all relevant info included and it shows they were always more than merely fitting in with the times. The songs don’t scream hard-line Goth messages but evoke unsettling or resigned states of mind and mood, into which you can drift. They are very controlled, from the beautiful ‘Seven’ to muggy synth spikes of ‘Body On Chrome’, two songs still performed now. The slow and strangely charming ‘Carpenters’, the spiky synth-laden ‘Something Good There Must Be’ and the slow pairing of ‘Sister Moon’ and ‘The Hunter & The Prey’ are all highly becoming, for there is grace and splendour to be had for all the sense of bitterness.

By bitter I don’t mean rancour, or recriminations, but a sense of unhappiness rather than a storyteller’s unease. ‘Swansong’ is a combustible, mental closer, and ‘Cathedral’ is Ye Old Gothic Rock bluster, but for the most part this is an imaginative, haunting modern Goth style, clipped and clear, with a strange sense of stillness in many of the songs. It certainly isn’t clichéd and shows them to have created really good work through the years.

Mick Mercer, THE MICK# 8.

16 tracks are featured on this newest release of this Geman band Cream VIII. No new tracks here, all of them have been or will be released on other albums. Most of the songs are taken from the CDs "The Emerald Touch" and "Touching Ground". Excellent to get to know this band.

Givoanni Branquart, Empyre 17.