While I don’t want to make a habit out of reviewing compilation albums, ‘Majors & Minors’ was exactly the album I was hoping Tygers Of Pan Tang would release for a couple of years now. Ever since their current singer Jacopo Meille joined the band, I feel like their sound has been improving significantly. His Michael Hutchence meets Robert Plant voice gave the band a somewhat more melodic edge and apparently a great deal of inspiration. Stylistically, the band still plays their blend of hard rock and early heavy metal, with the riffs leaning more towards the latter and the melodies more towards the former.

All Meille-fronted albums by the band suffer a similar flaw, however, and that is the fact that the band tends to get stuck in the same mid-tempo gear for longer than necessary. ‘Majors & Minors’ does what many compilation albums fail to do: it truly focuses on the band’s strongest moments from the era presented here. There is still quite a bit of mid-tempo material, as that is what Tygers Of Pan Tang has been doing most frequently even in their early eighties heyday, but since quite a few of the better tracks of the last couple of studio albums are the faster ones, the dynamics simply work much better here.

Sequencing is a big factor in that and whoever was in charge of that for ‘Majors & Minors’ did a great job. All of the band’s recent albums had fantastic opening tracks, but a compilation can have only one. And while the passionate, very well-structured ‘Keeping Me Alive’ is my favorite of the bunch, the energetic, yet extremely catchy ‘Only The Brave’ is definitely the right choice to kick off this compilation. The partial ‘Hellbound’-rewrite ‘Never Give In’ is another fast rocker that may not have been an opening track, but has gotten a prominent place on ‘Majors & Minors’.

Interestingly enough, some of the mid-tempo tracks come across a little better here due to their placement. ‘White Lines’ was not one of my favorite tracks of their most recent studio album ‘Ritual’, but works extremely well here. ‘She’ kind of went by unnoticed every time I listened to ‘Ambush’, but its placement on ‘Majors & Minors’ made me realize that it is quite a cool track with a really cool, yearning feel. There will always be song choices to disagree with on a one-disc compilation – personally, I could have done without the sleazy, but just not groovy enough ‘Glad Rags’, though I understand its inclusion – but that remains a matter of taste.

There is not that much in terms of previously unreleased material on ‘Majors & Minors’. The orchestral mix of ‘Spoils Of War’ is not different enough from the original to pull out your wallet, but I do have to admit the excellent B-side ‘What You Say’ is better than a significant number of tracks that did make it to Tygers Of Pan Tang’s recent albums. As a result, hardcore fans might find ‘Majors & Minors’ a disappointing release, though the liner notes are fairly interesting. But as an introdcution to what Tygers Of Pan Tang has been doing over the last decade or so, it is a perfect release. One I have been craving ever since loving a few tracks on the last couple of albums; most of them are gathered hear for everone to hear.

Recommended tracks: ‘Keeping Me Alive’, ‘Only The Brave’, ‘What You Say’