With
Seventeen,
the Samples'
Sean Kelly and
Tom Askin strip down some of their band's most beloved songs and present them intimately to a mindful Quinnipiac College audience. More than just a souvenir of that evening, this compelling live disc -- named for both the song and the number of tracks -- gives band staples like "Who Am I?" and "Seany Boy" a welcome, relaxed feel. Recorded at the end of a nationwide acoustic trek,
Kelly and
Askin (along with
Vertical Horizon's Ed Toth on percussion) perform their distinctive
Sting-meets-
the Grateful Dead material, using piano accents to warm these extracts from
the Samples' songbook. Some could balk that
Seventeen is a stopgap release between the outfit's last studio album, 2001's
Return to Earth, and its imminent follow-up, but by breathing new life into aging numbers like "Feel Us Shaking" and "Close to the Fires" (both from their 1989 self-titled debut), these nuggets sound new again. ~ John D. Luerssen