Hanoi Rocks - Lightning Bar Blues: The Albums 1981-1984

All six of the albums Hanoi Rocks made in their original incarnation -- Bangkok Shocks, Saigon Shakes, Hanoi Rocks, Oriental Beat, Self Destruction Blues, Back To The Mystery City, Two Steps From The Move, and All Those Wasted Years -- are packaged together, one album to one CD, in this straightforward six-CD set. There are no extras, just the albums as they were originally released, though there's a 12-page booklet with a solid history of the band and numerous (if small) reproductions of sleeves from their original releases. It's too much at once even for many fans, but for the more dedicated of that lot, it's a handy encapsulation of their primary recorded work. Hearing all of it does make it clear that, although they're often classified as a heavy metal band, they might be more accurately pegged as a hard rock band with substantial traces of glam and pop (and even some bar band blues-rock) along with the metal. ~ Richie Unterberger, All Music Guide