5 out of 5

Label: Crass Lips Records

Produced by: ?

A “greatest hits” of Luttenbachers tracks mostly from the first chunk of 00s releases – prior to their 2020s return – and thus synced to the tighter, math-core / instrumental noise of those albums. I was initially disappointed at this relatively limited scope, but was A. quickly reminded how relative ‘relatively’ is for a band as expansive in chaos as the Lutes, and B. immediately appreciative of how well selected these tunes are, working miraculously together as an album and rather highlighting the intense structure and storytelling at play in any given tune when abstracted from album interstitials and themes; that is: sometimes a FL experience can overwhelm as it strays, but here, we get “singles” that specialize in noisier or metal-ier or proggier variants of the group’s sound from this time, making every track feel both complete and epic.

Both sides of this cassette proceed towards the grandiose, delivering pretty succinct rockers – opening with classic Demonic Velocities, of the guitar-forward Cataclysm variant gets things off to an excellently concise start on the A-side – before side-ending tunes balloon out to 10- and then 20-minutes on the frantic but waywardly poppy Rise of the Iridescent Behemoth. Inbetween we broach some harsher noise elements, but it’s always tempered by rhythm and identifiable “choruses” of sorts, with a consistent icy guitar / death metal drums production style that works excellently with this type of technical rocking out.

Both an excellent summary of the group’s range, plucked from this window of releases, and also an excellent primer if you want to gift someone a pretty great sample of the band at (a version of) their best.