Luna: The Best of Luna (CD on Beggars Banquet)

Band: Luna
Label: Beggars Banquet
Title: The Best of Luna

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Band:Luna
Title:The Best of Luna
Reviewed By:Jon Rogers
Date Published:07/11/2006

Label:Beggars Banquet
Format:CD
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After the disintegration of Galaxie 500 Dean Wareham set off on his own path and founded New York’s Luna.

Essentially Wareham took the blueprint laid down by the Velvet Underground’s eponymous third album and made a career out of expanding on it, taking a more relaxed, laid-back approach. He managed to make it last for seven albums. And while the critics took to the band, in particular the group’s third album 'Penthouse' in 1995, it never really broke out of being a much-admired cult attraction.

This compilation manages to separate the wheat from the chaff and show that Luna were, largely, overlooked.

Making explicit the great debt owed to the Velvets was the inclusion of guitarist Sterling Morrison on 'Friendly Advice' from the second album 'Bewitched” after the band had supported the Velvets on their reunion tour.

Wareham’s guitar playing also drew from Television’s Tom Verlaine and Verlaine popped up to lend a hand on 'Penthouse'.

For most of the time Luna played lullaby-soft, gentle songs. Even '23 Minutes in Brussels' – inspired by a famous bootleg of a riot at a Suicide gig – is largely happy to plod along while Verlaine overlays some gorgeous guitar solos. It only really gets animated towards the end, but it is well worth waiting for.

While Luna managed to write some lovely songs that captivated like the early single 'Anesthesia' and 'Tiger Lily' they essentially made the same record seven times. They had found what worked for them and decided not to mess with the formula. In the years between 1992s 'Lunapark' and 2004s 'Rendezvous' nothing, fundamentally changed. If you’d heard one Luna album, you’d heard them all.

Like Galaxie 500 Luna had a love of the cover version and weren’t afraid to try out the unusual expected. Included with the 'Best of' comes 'Lunafied', a separate disc of some of band’s covers. Included here are Kraftwerk’s 'Neon Lights', Wire’s 'Outdoor Miner' and Alice Cooper’s 'Only Women Bleed'. And even Guns ‘n’ Roses’ 'Sweet Child O’ Mine' gets the Luna treatment. Certainly not all of them really work, like Tom Rush’s 'No Regrets', but all are great fun and well worth a spin.

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Retrospective compilation from former Galaxie 500 frontman Dean Wareham's Velvet Underground-inspired cultband Luna, who broke up after over a decade and having record seven albums together

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Chris O'Toole watches foemer Galaxie 500 and Luna front man Dean Wareham play a surprisingly increasingly upbeat set at the Islington Assembly Hall in London

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On their farewell tour and at their final ever London date, Dominic Simpson watches seminal indie rockers Luna play a thrilling set of new and old classics at the University of London Union

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The Best of Luna - CD
Retrospective compilation from former Galaxie 500 frontman Dean Wareham's Velvet Underground-inspired cultband Luna, who broke up after over a decade and having record seven albums together

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