Brand X will always be held in affection by gentlemen of a certain era, surviving as they did endless personnel changes, clashes with management over how commercial they should be and even coming out the other side of having Phil Collins play with them for ‘fun’. This 4CD pack pulls together their six albums and includes a John Peel session from 1976. That Brand X could put out a live album recorded at both Ronnie's and the Hammersmith Odeon reflects not only the band's appeal but also how contemporary audiences had a thirst for complex yet accessible musics. The Mike Gibbs Orchestra of the time could equally fill Ronnie's and The Rainbow. So much then for the myth that punk ruled the airwaves of the time. That said, age has withered much of this material; nothing rots so readily as a well-curlicued synth solo. Brand X were one of the few Brit bands to revel in Return To Forever's sound, with Goodsall, the unifying glue across this material, fabulously embracing but hardly extending Di Meola's stylings. Check out ‘Deadly Nightshade’ if you lust after an epically scaled fretfest turbo-pumped by Corea-soundalike synths.