Not So Much Mourning But Celebrating What A Great Band They Were
Back in June last year the final nail was sadly bashed into Reuben’s coffin, signalling the end of a promising British band’s career as the pitfalls and down right perils of the music industry took its last fatal bite out of the trio. Calling an indefinite hiatus, the Aldershot band took the painstaking decision to call it a day after eight years of relentless battling that saw them not only attempting to conquer the music world, but to hold down ‘proper’ jobs at the same time basically in order to live, after kids, rock and roll isn’t only glamour.
For those who have been mourning the loss of one of the UK’s most promising bands, the time has come to celebrate once more for although the band have not announced plans to reform, they have given us the next best thing; a double CD and DVD package that chronicles all their b-sides, rare live recordings, all the promo videos and 2007 main stage set at Download. In short there hasn’t been a stone left unturned in pursuit for all Reuben material. And whilst the cynics may scoff, suggesting that this is a mere money spinning voyage, an attempt to drain those extra pennies out of the band’s name and career, for die hard fans this will be like every Christmas and birthday coming at once with just that added little pleasure of true Reuben brutality.
Perhaps a forewarning to those thinking of throwing in the text books in favour of life on the road, ‘We Should Have Gone To University’ is the ultimate Reuben fan’s collection neatly putting every song not on a Reuben album onto CD, even managing to list them in chronological order. Yes, it is for the true Reuben fan, the one that is still wearing the black armband with pride as they forage for every note the band ever played but that’s not to say there aren’t some hidden gems here from the cover of Nine Inch Nails’ ‘The Hand That Feeds’ live at the BBC, the brilliantly titled ‘Miffy In Auschwitz’ (again live at the BBC) to the novelty Christmas track, ‘Christmas Is Awesome’ to inject that festive cheer with bite. But it is the inclusion of the band’s Download footage that brings home just what an exciting and innovative band Reuben was.
‘We Should Have Gone To University’ is the ultimate collection for Reuben fans, carefully and thoughtfully arranging those missing parts of the puzzle for fans to ease their pain to and whilst this is for the true fan, those who missed out the first time round will still find something incredibly wonderful about the bludgeoning riffage that was Reuben.