Little Axe - The Return (2013)

This is a great overview of the early Little Axe albums (from 1994's The Wolf That House Built through 2010's Bought for a Dollar, Sold for a Dime). There's nothing from the excellent Stone Cold Ohio album (which was heavily influenced by gospel music) or 2011's superb If You Want Loyalty, Buy a Dog (which brilliantly fused blues with Dub Syndicate's reggae backing tracks). The packaging is nice, with artwork based on the Slow Fuse album. It's a good starting place if you're interested in the "21st century blues" of Skip McDonald. But the CD (which is "limited to 999 copies") only includes tracks 1 through 16. I expected a second disc or at least a download code for the remaining remixes, but there was none. I sent an email to the Echo Beach label several weeks ago, but have not heard back from them. You get much more for your money if you purchase the mp3 album, but you wouldn't know that from the product description. Despite this caveat, I would strongly recommend any of the above mentioned Little Axe recordings.