Kent - Box 1991 - 2008 (2008)

CD1: Kent (1995) + Bonus tracks: 12) Döda dagar; 13) Håll i mig (Jones och Giftet); 14) Ögon (Jones och giftet); 15) Klocka (Havsänglar); 16) Cirkel (Havsänglar)
CD2: Verkligen (1996) + Bonus tracks: 11) Saker man ser (Demo); 12) Alpha (Demo); 13) Din skugga (Demo)

CD3: Isola (1997) + Bonus tracks: 12) OWC (Live); 13) Celsius (Live)
CD4: Hagnesta Hill (1999) + Bonus tracks: 14) Inhale/Exhale (Demo)

CD5/6: B-Sidor 95-00 (2000)
CD7: Vapen & ammunition (2002) + Bonus tracks: 11) Vintervila; 12) Lämnar; 13) VinterNoll2; 14) Socker (Demo); 15) Love Undone (Demo)

CD8: Du & jag döden (2005) + Bonus tracks: 12) M; 13) Välgärninger & illdad; 14) Nihilisten; 15) Alla mot alla

CD9: The hjärta & smärta EP (2005) + Bonus tracks: 6) Nålens öga 

CD10: Tillbaka till samtiden (2007) + Bonus tracks: 12) Min värld; 13) Tick tack; 14) Det kanske kommer en förändring; 15) Ingenting (Demo); 16) Håll dit huvudt högt (Live Eskilstuna 2008)

A great career (so far) retrospective box set for a great band, with enough treats for the fans too.

Key tracks: Of the bonus material, "Håll i mig", "Nålens öga", "Det kanske kommer en förändring"

Following the closure of one chapter and the start of a new one in their career, Kent continued to avoid releasing any kind of a standard greatest hits package, and instead celebrated the milestone with a box set collecting together the first decade and a half of their career: the evolution from scrappy angst-rock wannabes to stadium-sized hit makers and stylistic chameleons stubbornly doing exactly what their instincts told. I managed to score this suspiciously cheap in nearly brand new condition, and I still consider that as one of the best music deals I’ve come across when it comes to getting your money’s worth.

Part of the box set experience is the physical wonder, and the Kent box ticks this pretty well. The overall design is minimalistally sleek and stylish rather than lavish and glamorous: the ten CDs are stored a sleek, compact box within a slipcase, and the discs have their own slipcases that feature minor re-designs of the original cover art to create a shared aesthetic within the box. It's not a box set that may not particularly wow in presentation, but it looks and feels just right for the band and their general restraint. The obligatory companion booklet is pleasantly thick and informative: you’ll need to brush up on your Swedish to read through the band’s chronological and often irreverent take on their own career path as each era gets a quick behind-the-scenes glance, and given Kent aren't exactly reknown for talking to the press, the information here is fan gold. Together with other interesting trivia e.g. setlist samples across the band's history, it's a solid retrospective and a great backdrop for what matters the most, i.e. the music.

I've reviewed the albums separately and you can find the links to the individual reviews in the tracklist so there’s little point in repeating myself - the gist is, by 2008 Kent had become a great band who had been responsible of plenty of great albums and classic songs, with a few wobbles along the way  Thus, from a fan perspective the main hook here will be the bonus material, and it's much better than some of the tracklist initially might read as. The b-sides for the first four albums were already collected in B-Sidor 95-00 which is included here anyway, and so the first half’s somewhat scarce bonus material mainly focuses on demos and live cuts - but don't let that think they're not something worthwhile. The big snag are the handful of recordings from Kent’s early incarnations Jones och Giftet and Havsänglar, and they are shockingly good - the recording quality is shoddy but the early 90s alternative/indie sound is great and as songs they are more interesting from an arrangement and melodic perspective than most of the 1995 debut album. It's actually weird how the band almost regressed from their initial versions when they started recording their proper debut album (based on these carefully selected excerpts), and if the debut had more songs like "Håll i mig" I'd be singing a different tune about it. 

 

 

The other demos have been selected carefully to show aspects that haven’t been heard in public before, and they aren't just scruffy versions of familiar songs as one might expect. A handful of Isola era songs look to have been originally conceived much earlier and so the demo for "Saker man ser" sounds far more intimate when featuring just Joakim Berg and his drum machine, and the demo for “Din skugga” has none of the studio version's guitar walls and instead has an (synth-)orchestral backing that echoes the 2009 single "Hjärta". The later demos follow suite, with "Socker" being similarly intimate to "Saker man ser" but now with an entire section of lyrics that were scrapped from the final version (we finally a get title drop!) and "Ingenting" driving in the style change as even the home demo goes all in on the electronic flourishes. The rest of the bonus material for the first four albums revolves around the band’s ill-advised attempt at cracking the English market: the live recordings of "OWC" and "Celsius" are the English versions of the songs, and you also have demos for the previously unreleased “Inhale/Exhale” and later on “Love Undone” (an English version of Vapen & ammunition’s “Duett”). The new songs recorded for the English version of Hagnesta Hill haven’t been included (one of the box set’s very few exclusions), but the English material that is presented proves really strongly how much Berg struggles with singing in English with his practically incomprehensible enunciation, and I genuinely do not think we are missing anything from hearing less of it. If anyone ever wishes Kent would sing in English so they could understand it, just point them to these songs as a counter-point.

Nonetheless, the albums from Vapen & ammunition onwards get inarguably more rewarding with the bonus material as the box set acts as a chance to compile all the b-sides and non-album singles from these periods together. There are some great songs among those: all four of the Du & jag döden b-sides are practically essential to any fan of the album as they retain both the sound and the quality of the record, and the beautifully deep and atmospheric "Det kanske kommer en förändring" is a stunningly good scene-setter, lush in rich keyboards that coat Berg's voice in distant dreaminess. The non-album singles, the Rock Band favourite "VinterNoll2" with its urgent guitar energy and the wistfully ethereal "Nålens öga", would have been real album highlights had they ever appeared on any, and this is the only release outside the actual singles where you can find them. There's also one brand new song in form of a live version of "Håll dit huvudt högt", which was never recorded in studio and so this is the only time it ever appears in Kent's discography. Given how Kent-by-numbers it is that's no real surprise and making it one of the box set's selling points feels rather rough, but it's still a thoroughly enjoyable song: a dictionary example of a song that introduces literally nothing new to the band who wrote it (some of the melodies are so familiar I had to check they weren't circulated to other songs), but the familiar ingredients create an enjoyable, if a very safe, tune.

The long and short of this is that if you're still stuck in the CD era, Box 1991 - 2008 is a great way to get hold of a little over the first half of Kent's back catalogue (if you're even able to easily find this anymore). If you're a big enough fan to consider getting the box even if you own everything already, then the bonus material is worth it for the latter day b-sides alone, alongside the genuinely interesting demos. Kent have always done their utmost best to avoid cheap retrospectives (even the compilation that did arrive after they called it a day is so irrational that it feels like intentionally flipping the bird), and the box set reflects that well, with clear care to attention in place and not just chucking any old recordings as blatant fan grabs to listen to once and forget immediately. I don't think my average rating for the albums will quite match the rating for this box, but that extra boost is for the full package and the value it has. It acts like a real history tour, told in music - and so, I give my eternal kudos to whoever priced this at around €30 within months from release at my then-local record shop.

Rating: 9/10