A Review of "Sacrifice - Extended Mixes" by David Brezniak
(who gave it 9 out of 10)
June 11th 1997

I listened to Gary experiment with new sounds, dance beats, female vocals, you name it, he's just about tried it all. Sacrifice is a whole new ball-game with some of the old sound mixed together with the new sound.

Gone are the hippidy-hoppidy Gary songs we've heard from previous albums as New Anger (sorry, I'm from the U.S.) and Outland. Here is a new version of Gary - a much darker version but also I believe more "true", if you'll pardon the expression. Gary really had a theme for this album, a whole set of ideas to communicate to the listeners. He achieved this very well. Of all the tracks on the album, I have 'finally' narrowed it down to my favorite tracks, but only by my set categories, as I had a hard time figuring out ONE favorite, the entire album is so brilliant.

As far as the best song off this album to perform live, I'd say "Love And Napalm" has to be the best, with it's "rocky" guitar and rhythm, along with Gary's perfect lyrics, it's the best live choice to get the crowd good and rowdy, even here in the U.S.

The best ballad of course is "The Seed Of A Lie" with it's somewhat haunting opening, but yet the song also has a very happy sounding melody mixed in. I thought it was perfect.

"Pray" did go over well with me, as I found it to be a good "opening" song to the album. It helped set the tone and got me ready for the rest of the album.

I was not a fan of "Deadliner" only because I didn't like Gary "talking" a lot of the vocals. He did do a great job on the keyboard work, though, so I don't hate it, either.

All in all, I loved the album. I played it for my roommates (who listened to "Like A Refugee" until I forced them to like it...:-) and they both raised their eyebrows. No, they're still not die-hard fans, but they saw something very special about the album. Gary really tries here to re-invent himself, get an idea across, tell a story, whatever it may be. Joe and Missy (the roomies) even agreed "Love And Napalm" would have done well here in the U.S. if it had been given the chance. Oh well, hopes of Exile are high, and with the release of Random, who knows what the future holds for Gary, no one can really say, but we can just sit back and enjoy all of it.