A Guide For Beginners - The Voice Of Silver/A Guide For Finishers - A Hair Of Gold

This two-CD set is a widely available reissue of two Russian collections released by Feelee in 2001: A Guide for Beginners: The Voice of Silver and A Guide for Finishers: A Hair of Gold. Only two of the 20 tracks, "A Cold Cell," and "A.Y.O.R.," were previously unavailable at the time ("A Cold Cell" soon turned up on The Wire Tapper, Vol. 6 released by the British magazine The Wire), although some were a bit hard to find. Seasoned fans will feel the repetition (after all, this is not the first Coil "best of" to hit the stores) but newcomers will be treated to a first-class tour of John Balance and Peter Christopherson's realm. Disc one focuses on ambient tracks, the melodic, murmuring, slightly frightening kind Coil do so well. It draws heavily on the two volumes of Musick to Play in the Dark (including the grippingly beautiful "Batwings"), but also goes back to early efforts like Scatology ("At the Heart of It All") and Horse Rotovator ("Amethyst Deceivers"). Disc two presents the flipside, throwing together more aggressive, noise-based pieces that are often upbeat. The rough industrial stance of "Panic," "The Anal Staircase," "Solar Lodge," and the like, make this disc more difficult to listen to, if only because it leaves little chance to breathe. The set concludes marvelously with "The First Five Minutes After Violent Death." Every fan will have one of his or her favorite tracks missing, but the casual listener will find in The Golden Hair with a Voice of Silver the perfect place to start. ~ Francois Couture