Short Reviews [The Pineapple Thief - 2025 - "Retracing Our Steps (2007-2014)"]

Back in 1993 I was told about this amazing new prog band from Yeovil called Vulgar Unicorn, and I eventually managed to get a phone number to call them, which is how I got their debut demo tape, ‘The History of the World’. The band was based around two main musicians, Neil Randle and Bruce Soord, and after another demo (‘Under The Umbrella’) they signed with Cyclops, who at the time were grabbing every prog band they could lay their hands on, releasing their debut CD in 1995. I liked them right from the beginning, but Bruce decided he also needed to release a different style of music, and formed a side project, Pineapple Thief (the “The” was not added until ’12 Stories Down’ in 2004), who released ‘Abducting the Unicorn’ (see the play on the title here?) in 1999. Both bands existed for a while, with Vulgar Unicorn releasing their final album in 2005, but The Pineapple Thief have gone from strength to strength, and this new 8-disc compilation provides a remastered and remixed look at ‘What We Have Sown’ (2007), ‘Tightly Unwound’ (2008), ‘Someone Here Is Missing’ (2010), ‘All The Wars’ (2012) and ‘Magnolia’ (2014) along with a disc containing both of the 2009 ‘The Dawn Raids’ EPs, as well as the 2010 ‘Show A Little Love’ EP, plus rarities, a disc of acoustic reinterpretations, and a Blu-ray which provides Dolby Atmos, 5.1 surround and hi-res stereo mixes as well as a 76-page book. This is a companion release to 2023’s ‘How Did We Find Our Way?’ which was based on the earlier albums, and in a few years’ time I would expect another to bring us up to date I must confess to being somewhat surprised at the price of this, as I note that Burning Shed have it for sale at just GBP 79.99 which seems very reasonable given what it includes, but I am not sure what the expected market will be? Someone looking to purchase this will need to be a hardcore fan, and want to replace albums with newer versions of ones they may already own, and is there that much difference? Although I am probably one of very few people in the world still writing who were there at the very beginning of Bruce’s journey, and reviewed the first five TPF albums, I have only previously heard one of the albums included in the set, and I haven’t played it in more than 10 years, so can’t comment. What I can say is that I have thoroughly enjoyed hearing all these songs one after the other, and with 86 songs at more than 7 hours in length there is certainly a lot to get through. This is not aimed at a newcomer to the band, and anything I write is more pointless than normal as fans will get it whatever I say about it, while non-fans will not, so all I can say is that in my opinion this is a very well-priced set which will be invaluable to those who love The Pineapple Thief.