3 out of 5

Label: SpinART

Producer: Tom Fox (engineer)

Camper has a couple official rarities collections – this one and ‘Camper Van Beethoven Is Dead’ – and you’d think that the first of any given outtakes / rarities set would contain the cherry-pickin’s, but ‘Vantiquities’ is the slimmest of the CVB releases, truly sounding like the odds and ends of which it’s comprised.  That doesn’t make it a bad listen – the band had always had a laid-back polish to them, making even the barest and simplest songs quite pleasant – but you can hear how most of these tracks could be swapped out with similar toned / sounding songs on various albums, meaning that we’re dealing with an album of not filler, exactly, but those in-between tracks that were just head-bobbers to warm you up for some classics.  Which could be said that that’s what the first few tracks on this album actually were – taken from the pre major label debut ‘Revolutionary Sweetheart’ EP ‘Vampire Can Mating Oven’, openers ‘Heart,’ ‘Never Go Back’ and ‘Seven Languages’ feel like sweet so-longs to the college years of CVB, with simple riffs and amusing lyrics that wring out a smirk while the ska-light guitar and bouncy keys pop along.  Interestingly, the EP’s material is split by some new-to-this-comp material and the reissue Fox Studios demos of some ‘Key Lime Pie’ tracks, slotting the latter ‘Mating Oven’ songs onto the disc’s tail end, which gets rather same-soundy with some fairly empty instrumental numbers and a couple covers, including a rather bland Ringo Starr song (‘Photograph’).

The cover of the Kinks’ ‘I’m Not Like Everybody Else’ is totally not the first thing I’d have imagined CVB doing, but they make it into their own song and Lowery sings it with passion.  The Fox demos don’t compositionally differ from the album versions of the songs, but they are stripped down, allowing some nuances to poke through that don’t show up on the produced versions.  And there are definitely some strong tracks surrounding this that sound closer to the more sober sounds of the ‘Pie’ era – ‘Guardian Angels’ particularly effective and ‘Silent Monster’ and quick and dirty instrumental jam – but these songs need more consistency surrounding them to really stand out.

Still, even on their off tracks, like Camper crew aren’t really off, or just tossing something out there.  Vantiquities is certainly more appealing to fans, as it lacks a sense of cohesion or singles for a casual listener, but no one’s denying this was a collection of bits and pieces.  So consider them B-sides, and splice it up in your master CVB mix that you listen to all the time.