Selvaggina, Go Back into the Woods is a limited-edition live album, recorded on June 11, 2004 in Jesi, Italy. This appears to be the full set of the concert, and contains a new version of every track from previous studio effort
Black Antlers. As such, the question of which has more value to the listener is to be considered.
Selvaggina is well-recorded and excellently performed, and some of the kinks of the
Antlers versions of the tracks have been ironed out. For example, opener "The Gimp (Sometimes)" is here a more vibrant and shorter version than its counterpart, but retains its aura of goofy menace. "Sex with Sun Ra" retains the vibe of the
Antlers version, but with more urgent vocalizations from
John Balance, and animated work from
Tom Edwards on the marimba. There's a telling bit of stage banter from
Balance about this concert: "We're truncating, we're making shorter the things tonight because we haven't got enough time unfortunately to do the long versions we wanted to do, so apologies for that, but maybe you're being saved from our indulgences, I don't know." The editing that the band does on the songs here is very noticeable, sounding refined and worked-on, improving on the studio versions in every way. Of all of the live albums that
Coil released in the last few years of its existence, this is the best, hands-down. This may be one of the harder pieces of the
Coil catalog to track down (this was limited to a mere 230 copies), and it is undoubtedly one of the best. How perverse of them, to do that to their fans.
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James Mason, Rovi