BARBARO (MA NON TROPPO)

I wasn't impressed by Present's comeback album Certitudes, which I thought fell far short of their first two great studio albums, but Barbaro has convinced me that I really need to take take another look at the albums that followed Certitudes, because there's some great stuff on here. Even if you set aside the fantastic DVD that comes with this set and is stuffed full of juicy live performances from the band, the CD comes with two great chamber rock spookfests as well as a fine performance of Jack the Ripper, one of Roger Trigaux' Univers Zero-era compositions which had pride of place on their classic Heresie. On the whole, because of the inclusion of this cover version I am inclined to consider this a DVD set which happens to have an EP attached, but the whole package is good enough to make me want to explore latter-day Present a bit more.