Roger the Engineer / Over Under Sideways Down (Remastered)

Album Review

The most sensible and best-sounding of all reissues of this material as of the year 2000, in state-of-the-art sound (outstripping the clarity of the Warner Bros. version of Roger the Engineer and all of the correct titles and spellings), and in a well-annotated package (with great photos, too). Like Epic Records' 1983 version of The Yardbirds, this CD combines the definitive masters of these songs whether they're mono or stereo, and includes the alternate single masters on "Jeff's Boogie" and "Over Under Sideways Down." Those bonus tracks are augmented by a quintet of Keith Relf solo tracks, including an alternate take of "Shapes in My Mind." Those songs really don't fit that well with the Yardbirds' material, being more low-key than much of the album's contents, but they don't do excessive violence to the original song lineup, either, and they are psychedelic in a folk-like way. (Ideally, the songs off of The Yardbirds would be supplemented by their early work-in-progress versions, which are included on other CDs in this series from Repertoire, but the licensing agreements between the Yardbirds' organization and their licensee precludes the intermingling of material owned by the band and the songs owned by Charly Records, including the early working versions of The Yardbirds material, on the same CDs). (See also The Yardbirds, Over Under Sideways Down.)