Description
Outstanding Claims is a compilation album by the British rock band Fresh Claim, released in the UK on Plankton Records in August 1993.
Album Liner Notes:
Fresh Claim was formed in 1986 by Simon & Mags Law after a visit to the UBO with the drummer of the time, Ali Byworth. Derek Llewellyn came to audition and the line-up was complete. Since then, the band have been gigging constantly to communicate the Good News to a sad world. Ali left in 1990, after our third album, to be replaced by Dan Johnston.
Outstanding Claims includes all of Fresh Claim’s studio recordings to date. Odd One Out and Huds Continental are now deleted we did not want the songs from these albums to be forgotten. To these we added the In Times of Rain album and 3 previously unreleased tracks. «Half My Life», «The Night Of The Storm» and «Bleeding For You» were recorded at Wildlife in Ipswich on 26th – 27th September 1992 and were once again engineered and produced by Nigel Palmer. While we were in the studio, we also remixed «Visions Never Sleep», as the guitar and vocals have always needed to be louder! Duplication (as always) by Selecta Sound. Design by Mags Law, Keith Dixon and Simon Low. Printing by Bayes.
This is a compilation of all of Fresh Claim’s studio recordings to date, plus three new songs. I will focus on the new songs and overall compilation here. They also have a live tape called Live! No Claims Bonus that is not included here, as well as a 1991 release called Soapbox which I am not sure why it is not included. And one of the new songs they list in the liner notes – «Half My Life» – was already on Soapbox as well. Kind of weird. Anyways, they start off with two of the new songs, then 1992’s In Times of Rain, then another new song, then they have Huds Continental (1989). Because this is a tape, you have to switch side after two songs from Huds Continental, but that problem obviously doesn’t happen on the CD and digital versions. Then they end with Odd One Out from 1987. The last song from Odd One Out («Visions Never Sleep») was apparently remixed for this compilation as well. The new songs fit in quite well with the existing material. They kind of sit somewhere between alternative rock and classic rock. After this, they released Songs From the Rock Communion in 1994. [Christian Tape Underground, June 10, 2025]
Not so much a “best of” as an “everything of” compilation from London’s hard working heavy blues-rockers, this contains all their studio recordings, that is, all of ‘Odd One Out’, ‘Huds Continental’ and ‘In Times Of Rain’ plus three previously unreleased songs. «Half My Life» and «The Night Of The Storm» are both rockers and «Bleeding For You» is a mellow jazz/blues thing with a touch of Claptonesque guitar. It is Simon Law’s guitar work that gives Fresh Claim the edge, he is firmly rooted in the Kossoff/Page school of riff building and blues scale lead work. The band occasionally betray a hint of funk and reggae in songs like «Love And Rockets» or «Brother In Need» and there are some mellow moments such as «A Choice of Shadows», but they are most at home playing those out-and-out rockers with Zeppelin style riffs like «Huds Continental» and my personal favourite «Paris Airshow». This tape is an excellent introduction to the band who Cross Rhythms once called “Surely the most underrated Christian band in Britain” (but it’s not really fair to quote that as I wrote it myself!). [Andy Long, Cross Rhythms, February 1994]
> Apple Music (https://music.apple.com/us/album/outstanding-claims/266042800)
CD tracklist:
01. Half My Life – 4:07
02. Night of the Storm – 4:05
03. Easy Way Out – 3:31
04. Cars and Girls – 3:22
05. Brother In Need – 4:14
06. In Times of Rain (Over You) – 3:44
07. Catch Me Out – 4:27
08. Hard As Nails – 2:37
09. Bleeding for You – 4:38
10. Huds Continental – 3:07
11. Love and Rockets – 3:29
12. Too Many Tears – 4:01
13. Don’t Wanna Be Like – 3:30
14. A Choice of Shadows – 4:54
15. Paris Airshow – 3:44
16. Strong Enough to See – 3:11
17. There’s Someone Loving You – 2:59
18. Sunday Morning Dawn – 4:56
19. Yesterday’s Hero (Is Tomorrow’s Fool) – 2:57
20. Enough Is Enough – 3:37
21. Visions Never Sleep – 3:54
Note: Re-issued on CD by Plankton Records in 2011.
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