This is a bit of the proverbial curate’s egg this one. We have all probably either a) looked aghast at the Saxon/ODS legal battles or, b) pissed ourselves laughing at the Saxon/ODS legal battles. Now that both entities are out and about serving up versions of the same songs we can now at least compare and contrast.  

Re landed ..Plus dates back a number of years ago when Messers Dawson and Oliver enlisted erstwhile Saxon cohort, six stringer Hayden Conway and ex Shy/Snakepit/Madam X vocalist John “Wardi” Ward and started playing the songs that they helped to write. Re Landed was released on (I think) Phoenix Music and has now been exhumed from the vaults with a few “new” tunes tagged on as an extra incentive to purchase. 

As you will be able to discern from the track listing, this is a live CD featuring classic Saxon tunes as well as Past the Point from when the band were know as Son of a Bitch and to be fair ... it is very enjoyable indeed for what it is. Ward sounds nothing like Biff Byford, his vocal style is much raspier but going with a Biff clone would have been the easy option. 

It all sounds suitably raw and I’d be very surprised if much, if any over dubbing went on. It would actually take a particularly incompetent group to fuck up the songs on offer and ODS are not incompetent at all. The acid test though is the non classic Saxon songs. Some of these were released about five years ago as a spilt CD with Girlschool and Tygers of Pan Tang and to be brutally honest, they aren’t that great. One Sour Krout (sic) is especially horrible and almost totally without merit. Worlds Gone Crazy is powered along by big riffs but without much in the way of a tune. Nursery Crimes has a fairly ludicrous lyric but has a certain charm. 

Perhaps the main selling point here is the fact that Re landed.. Plus comes with a DVD which is actually surprisingly watchable despite not having the best production values in the world. In fact, I would say that it is more entertaining than the other Saxon’s To Hell and Back. Overall, this is not bad and should provide pleasure for those of a certain age.

Simon Bray