Pantera’s “Far Beyond Driven” to Be Expanded by Rhino

Anyone who saw the breakthrough of Pantera’s Vulgar Display of Power as a fluke would be proven wrong in the spring of 1994, when the group’s heavy-hitting Far Beyond Driven debuted atop the Billboard 200. Two decades later, Rhino is expanding the LP with a previously unreleased live bootleg.

Far Beyond Driven continued the successful groove-metal formula established since the 1990 release of major-label debut Cowboys from Hell. The late guitarist Dimebag Darrell delivered some of the most monster riffs on six strings, while Phil Anselmo’s lyrics turned more introspective than on previous efforts, including lead single “I’m Broken” – which, with a Top 20 U.K. chart placement, is the band’s most successful single.

The 20th anniversary edition of Far Beyond Driven pairs the remastered original album with the band’s performance at the Monsters of Rock Festival in Donington, England on June 4, 1994. The band’s trek to Europe was tumultuous: Darrell and brother/Pantera drummer Vinnie Paul fought with journalists from Kerrang over an unflattering cartoon of Vinnie in the magazine, and Anselmo took on community service after assaulting a security guard at a gig later that month. But the resultant show is as energetic as they come, featuring songs from all three of the band’s Atco/EastWest albums.

Look for Far Beyond Driven: 20th Anniversary Edition on March 25. Pre-order links are not yet live, but the full track list is after the jump.

It’s a “Solid Gold” March From Real Gone with Grass Roots, David Ruffin, Marilyn McCoo, and More

We all know that March comes in like a lion, so it’s altogether appropriate, then, that Real Gone Music comes into March with a roar!  The label’s March 4 slate of eight titles emphasizes classic soul, with detours to vintage pop and country.  And as Mardi Gras 2014 falls on that very date, the sound of New Orleans is celebrated with a few very special releases, too.  From New Orleans, Real Gone presents titles from three bona fide Big Easy legends: Dr. John, Professor Longhair and Irma Thomas.  Sweetening the deal, the soul queen of New Orleans’ release unearths no less than 13 unreleased tracks!  That Crescent City trio is joined by a rare, never-on-CD solo album from The 5th Dimension’s Marilyn McCoo and Real Gone’s first-ever dip into the Motown catalogue with four long out-of-print albums on two CDs from The Temptations’ David Ruffin.  The line-up is rounded out by a collection of gospel sides from country legend Charley Pride and the complete hit A-sides from a group we knew the label would discover “sooner or later” – The Grass Roots!

Hit the jump for all of the details courtesy Real Gone’s press release, plus pre-order links to all titles!  And don’t miss out on the eclectic roster coming from Real Gone this February 4…all of the details are right here!

Silversun Pickups to Release “Singles Collection” on CD, Vinyl Box

If you’ll pardon the lyrical callback, Silversun Pickups fans have been waiting for this moment all their lives: the release of the band’s first greatest hits collection in February.

Hailing from the Silverlake region of Los Angeles, the Silversun Pickups have one of the more unusual mainstream rock backgrounds of the past decade, thanks to the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences nominating them for a Grammy Award for Best New Artist in 2009 – even though their first album, Carnavas (2006), was a moderate success with two Top 10 singles (“Lazy Eye” and “Well Thought Out Twinkles“) on Billboard‘s alternative rock chart. The exposure probably didn’t hurt, though: the band’s other two full-length albums have been Top 10 sellers, and the band’s aesthetic – distorted, Smashing Pumpkins-esque guitars and soft-to-loud vocals by lead singer Brian Aubert – have earned them a dedicated fan base.

The Singles Collection finds the band collating 10 of their previous singles from all three of their studio albums (and one from the 2005 EP Pikul) with one newly-recorded track, “Cannibal.” A deluxe box set version of the compilation features all 11 songs on six 7″ vinyl discs, with a second bonus track, “Devil’s Cup,” recorded during the sessions for the band’s 2009 album Swoon.

You can get either the CD or vinyl sets in stores on February 25. Full tracks and Amazon links are after the jump as available; fan bundles are also available on the band’s official website.

Love Came Down Again: The Blue Nile’s Third Album Expanded in March

A pleasant surprise for fans of The Blue Nile today: following the expansion of the band’s first two albums in 2012, Virgin/UMC will expand The Blue Nile’s third LP, 1996’s Peace At Last, in March with a disc of unreleased material.

Having released their last album, Hats, in 1989, the eclectic trio of Paul Buchanan (vocals/guitar/synthesizers), Robert Bell (bass) and Paul Joseph Moore (synthesizers) were finding themselves as in-demand musicians, despite the modest commercial reception of the band’s discography. Julian Lennon, Michael McDonald and Annie Lennox were all close collaborators at this time; the band co-wrote “The Gift,” the closing track to Lennox’s smash debut album Diva (1992).

Signing a new deal with Warner Bros. in 1992, Peace At Last was recorded in the band’s mobile studio over the U.S. and Europe after quite some time scouting locations. What set this album apart from its predecessors was the prominence of an acoustic guitar, rather than synthesizers, throughout the tracks. (The guitar had quite the significance to the band: in a recent interview, Buchanan said he bought in on a whim in New York not long after Bell had travelled to the same store and told him about it.)

“The idea, for better or worse, was to make an earthier record,” the band said in a statement for the new reissue. “On reflection maybe this was the most autobiographical record too. We didn’t set the personal against the city backdrop…we wanted hands, and the lines on hands and on faces. We wanted it to be human, and to reflect the doubtful ‘Peace At Last’ gained through tribulation and work and love.”

The album, newly remastered by original engineer and frequent Blue Nile collaborator Calum Malcolm, comes with a set of six unreleased tracks, including new mixes of key tracks, two outtakes and an unreleased demo, “A Certain Kind of Angel.” “On the remixes, we have gone back and treated the songs as we might previously have done – so they are a hybrid, a look at that source material but with a different perspective, and a different goal: we reintroduced another dimension or skyline,” the band’s statement read. “The same goes for the unreleased songs: they are halfway between what we were doing then and what we did before and after.”

The expanded Peace At Last is due in the U.K. on March 25. Full specs and Amazon U.K. link are after the jump. (A humongous hat tip to Stephen Sears for letting us know about this one!)