Label: Fuse Music Group

Verdict: An essential collection for latecomers to the Eddy Current Suppression Ring party.  7.5/10.

After releasing the best album of their career in October 2010, Melbourne-based garage rockers Eddy Current Suppression Ring decided to take some time off to focus on other projects.  With interest in the group still raging despite a lack of new material or gigs over the past year, now seems as good of a time as ever for the band to finally compile all of their out of print seven-inches and rarities onto a single compilation for those who missed them the first time around.

Spanning 22 tracks recorded over the entirety of Eddy Current Suppression Ring’s short career, So Many Things at the very least reinforces the group’s reputation as prolific song-writers.  Stylistically, the songs on offer range the spectrum of the band’s musical repertoire, from short punkish rockers to spaced out, improvised jams.

Given the expansiveness of the set, picking out highlights is quite a task.  However, the messy military march of “Iraq (It’s On The Map)” and the cover of “Boy, Can I Dance” (originally by The Pagans) should be of particular interest to anyone who is only acquainted with the group’s LPs, while the four-track version of “Rush To Relax” is perhaps even better than the album version.

As is expected in all compilations of this nature, however, So Many Things is not entirely consistent; recorded over a number of years, the production fluctuates somewhat throughout, as does the quality of songwriting. However, given the spontaneous and deliberately “rough-round-the-edges” approach that Eddy Current Suppression Ring have utilised since their formation, such inconsistencies are unlikely to really bother most listeners.

On the whole, So Many Things delivers exactly what it should; all the good stuff that Eddy Current Suppression Ring left off their albums.  Hardcore listeners might not find much new on offer, but then again it is still a whole lot more convenient to have all of the group’s hard to find stuff together on one CD than across a dozen 7seven-inches and compilations.