One of the less essential '60s albums by the Hollies, whose capabilities were arguably stretched by the two-album-a-year-pace-in-addition-to-three-hit-singles model established by the Beatles during this time. Their version of Paul Simon's "I Am a Rock" is nice, but the soul and early rock covers of Sam & Dave, Otis Redding, and Chuck Berry are pretty dispensable; the Hollies were not the Stones or the Animals, lacking their soul and interpretative imagination. Some of the originals are pretty ho-hum too (including the pathetic "Fifi the Flea," which was covered by the Everly Brothers). But every Hollies album of the '60s has some strong overlooked tracks. On this one, they're the surprisingly tough folk-rockers "Hard, Hard Year" and "I've Got a Way of My Own." The ultra-catchy "Don't You Even Care," written by Clint Ballard, Jr. (also responsible for their number one British hit "I'm Alive," as well as "The Game of Love" and "You're No Good"), is the real obscure gem here and could have well been a hit under its own steam…

All but one of these 19 tracks were recorded in December, 1964, as Paul Butterfield Blues Band's projected first LP; the results were scrapped and replaced by their official self-titled debut, cut a few months later. With both Michael Bloomfield and Elvin Bishop already in tow, these sessions rank among the earliest blues-rock ever laid down. Extremely similar in feel to the first album, it's perhaps a bit rawer in production and performance, but not appreciably worse or different than what ended up on the actual debut LP. Dedicated primarily to electric Chicago blues standards, Butterfield fans will find this well worth acquiring, as most of the selections were never officially recorded by the first lineup (although different renditions of five tracks showed up on the first album and the What's Shakin' compilation).

Charlie Byrd's second album as a leader features the acoustic guitarist in a trio with bassist Keeter Betts and drummer Gus Johnson. One side of this LP finds the trio interpreting four swing-era standards (including "Blues My Naughty Sweetie Gave to Me" and "Jive at Five") while the flip side consists of the three-part suite "Blues for Night People." Listeners only familiar with Byrd's bossa-nova performances may find this early recording (which predates the emergence of Jobim) a bit of a surprise although the lyrical guitarist is easily recognizable.

Quasar Lux Symphoniae performs a refined music with elaborated and successful arrangements and subtle melodic inspiration in the compositions. The Dead Dream is the first lysergic trip of Quasar L.S. (before Lux Symphoniae's majestic works), originally dated 1977, recorded again in 1995 because the original tapes were lost, with absolute respect of the original recordings. A psychedelic pearl in a concept album. A visionary and dramatic story too. Not only the psychodrama of Roxy, maybe a soundtrack and an epitaph for the death of the lysergic and hippy dream.

The use of the word gold in the album title is ironic, since a collection of outtakes and leftovers is generally considered to weigh in well under the gold scale. With a group such as the evolving Coil collaboration, however, there's the chance that a well-conceived collection of archive material could have quite a positive impact, whatever the relative status of individual tracks in terms of what projects they were first created for. Rejected material can become a highlight out of a combination of whatever unusual aspects already exist in a piece as well as the dramatic impact of a newly conceived program flow. Gold Is the Metal is a great example of this since the individual tracks continually present challenges to the listener combined with a sonic magnetism…