This collects rehearsal tapes and live performances from DIJ's early days, but is unfortunately more of an interesting historical curiosity rather than a compelling listen for anyone but the most die hard fans.
NER US
For me, the "demos and live tracks" compilation is difficult to deal with. They're usually interesting when relegated to bonus tracks on a remastered release or good box set fodder, but standing on their own they usually don’t succeed. A personal benchmark is Wire's Behind The Curtain. That single disc collection of demos and rarities showed the band during a transitional period, and those demos were often significantly different than the album versions. The Phoenix Has Risen, unfortunately, doesn’t achieve this lofty goal. The tracks are from The Guilty Have No Pride (i.e., the Laibach/Joy Division death rock days) era with Patrick Leagas and Tony Wakeford still as part of the group. The rehearsal tapes from 1981 demonstrate little different than rough takes of songs Death in June fans are all familiar with. With the exception of "We Drive East" (which has a different vocal style and is longer) and "Knives" (a.k.a. "Till the Living Flesh is Burned," which also features different vocals and lyrics), the songs are practically identical to the final released versions, just low quality mixes with indecipherable vocals.
The other half of the disc is a live show from 1983, which also covers much of the same ground as the rehearsals, and is no better than bootleg quality. Being a live performance, it is a bit more engaging, but once again, nothing any casual listener would be too enamored with.
The most interesting bits on here are unfortunately the shortest. The "Untitled" track from the rehearsal half of the album actually has Tony Wakeford getting downright FUNKY on a bassline for a bit under a minute, and the protracted introduction to the live performance, in which the lo fidelity setting of the recording gives the track a more militaristic industrial edge then could be expected.
One has to feel that Tesco/NER is starting to scrape the bottom of the barrel with these Death in June releases, and I suppose it was inevitable. The luxurious reissues they have issued over the past few years have been excellent, and it would seem that they are simply out of material. I just hope this does not set a precedent for future releases.
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