There's little question that the double-disc collection
Hot Burritos! The Flying Burrito Brothers Anthology 1969-1972 is comprehensive, since it contains the entirety of the band's first three albums plus a bevy of rarities, including six songs from Close Up the Honky-Tonks, two cuts from
Sleepless Nights, two tracks from
The Last of the Red Hot Burritos, the non-LP single "The Train Song," and "Six Days on the Road," originally released on the 1988 collection Farther Along: The Best of the Flying Burrito Brothers. That pretty much covers everything they cut during those four years. Since
the Burritos were truly great while
Gram Parsons was in the band -- once he left, they were still solid, thanks to
Chris Hillman -- this may border on overkill for some listeners, especially since the
Parsons years are covered expertly by Farther Along, which contained all but one song from
The Gilded Palace of Sin, plus the best songs from
Deluxe and rarities and highlights from posthumous releases. For neophytes, that's a better bet, yet the converted will find this quite nice. Apart from "The Train Song," which rarely shows up on collections, there aren't any revelations or even new songs, but there are nice liner notes, great outtakes from the photo shoot for
Gilded Palace, and exquisite remastered sound. And, for
Parsons fanatics, the
Hillman-led
Flying Burrito Brothers may seem like a new record, too, since they may have previously overlooked it. So, diehards get all the
Parsons material in one place, while neophytes with a serious attention span will be introduced to one of the great bands of the last 25 years of the 20th century -- and, yes, that means it qualifies as definitive. ~ Stephen Thomas Erlewine