Some albums are just too easy to recommend.  This is especially true to the ‘last’ Mott the Hoople album (the one that featured Ian Hunter within its ranks).  In fact, Mott existed for several more albums but respectfully as Mott rather than the entire original moniker.  The album is The Hoople, recorded after the successful Mott album (which still featured Mick Ralphs before he went on to greater fame as Bad Company’s guitarist).  Many readers of this review are already very familiar with this band, their accomplishments, and their various splintering activities away from the band.

This review is actually more about the releasing “reissues” label (Iconoclassic Records) than the album itself but since we’re here, we’ll not ignore the album.

The Hoople was the final grasp at an evading superstardom that plagued Hunter and his fellow mates.  Touched with insightful looks at life from Hunter’s lyrics and bolstered by the excellent musicianship of the band, Mott the Hoople had always seemed to deliver more as they got older…and wiser.  The Hoople, while not of the greatness that Mott achieved, is still a pretty fine album with some songs that just won’t die but seems to hang in the clouds of great songs, just not getting the attention due them.  “Roll Away the Stone” is one of those, as is “Foxy, Foxy,” a non-LP single included here as a bonus track.  Another great non-LP bonus track includes the stunning “(Do You Remember) The Saturday Gigs.”

The album, as a whole, provided a spectacular run with songs like Watts’ “Born Late ’58,” a hard-rocker tune that was sung by Overend Watts, and is considered one of the bright spots on the album.  The bonus tracks included here are essential additions.  You’ll find the B-side to “Roll Away the Stone,” of “Where Do You All Come From.”  That track, a bluesy Jazz tune, isn’t classic Mott but it is a curiosity here.  “Rest in Peace” is the B-side to “The Golden Age of Rock ‘n’ Roll,” and sounds very Dylanesque, a trait that suited Hunter.  Other included bonus tracks include the work-in-progress called “The Saturday Kids,” which eventually became “(Do You Remember) The Saturday Gigs,” and the aborted B-side to an intended single called “Lounge Lizzard.”  That song eventually became an Ian Hunter tune.  The bonus tracks is concluded with a live Broadway performance of “American Pie/The Golden Age of Rock ‘n’ Roll” that is worth having, with “American Pie” serving as an intro to the grand “The Golden Age of Rock  ‘n’ Roll.”

Iconoclassic Records has done a better than superior job with this reissue.  There is nothing that appears second-hand here, and, in fact, the love lavished on this reissue hints that it was re-released by a large label intending to pull out the stops on the release.  And while Legacy re-released this album several years ago, they did so only digitally.  This reissue inserts a classic Mott the Hoople album back into the marketplace with a job so professionally done, I’m ecstatic about it.  Here’s what you get:  The music features the re-mastering completed in 2006 when Legacy release the title as a Digital Download, which still sounds pretty good.  The booklet is a precision piece that is 12-pages in length, contains an essay by Campbell Devine (author of All the Young Dudes: The Biography of Mott the Hoople and Ian Hunter), and shots of the band’s singles’ sleeves (UK and Japanese).  The liner notes intimate that Ronnie Montrose, Joe Walsh, and Tommy Bolin were all considered as replacements for the departed Mick Ralphs.  One can only imagine how the band might have progressed with one of those legends in place.  However, the notes also tell us that Hunter preferred being the band’s chief songwriter, and therefore Luther Grosvenor of Widowmaker fame, joined as Ariel Bender.  Eventually, even Grosvener would leave, providing room for Bowie’s genius axeman, Mick Ronson.  The booklet also contains the original lyrics art found in the album LP.  There are plenty of credits, leaving nothing to the imagination.

The CD itself is painted with the familiar red Columbia Records’ LP label of the time, eschewing gaudy reissue labels artwork for a wonderfully genuine touch that is deeply appreciated by me.  The tray photo is of the band (circa Ronson).  In short, the entire CD is a celebration of the album that lavishes immense respect upon the work, keeping the spotlight where it belongs, on the album itself.  I want to take this time to say to Iconoclassic Records that you people simply are one of the best reissuing labels in respect to overall presentation of the album.  I appreciate your obvious love and adoration of the album release as opposed to anything else that might detract.  I now look forward to every new reissue that you invest in.

This reissued CD IS the definitive release of The Hoople.  You’ll want this one for sure.