2022 CD Reviews - Metal Church - The Best Of Mike Howe 2016 - 2021

Metal Church
The Best of Mike Howe 2016-2021
Rat Pak Records - 2022
http://www.metalchurchofficial.com

I'll be the first to admit that I'm not generally buying many greatest hits compilations these days. But if I am going to add one of them to my collection, there has got to be some kind of compelling reason for me to do so.

It's been more than a year since Metal Church singer Mike Howe died and every time I think about the fact that he's not here (and there won't be any new music featuring his vocals), I feel a little bummed out.

So when Rat Pak Records announced they were doing a compilation release to celebrate Howe's 2nd run with the band, I was interested to learn that they'd be including a previously unreleased bonus track. But we'll get to that a bit later on.

As the album's title suggests, the track listing for the compilation is made up of songs from when Mike Howe returned to the Metal Church lineup in 2016 through 2021. That includes the studio albums XI (four songs) and Damned If You Do (three songs) as well as the compilation From The Vault (2 songs). The live release Classic Live is not represented on this compilation.

Now there can always be a debate about what tracks should be featured on a greatest hits disc but I think the songs selected for this release did a pretty solid job of representing the band's work with Howe this second time around.

It's hard to argue with killer tracks like "Reset", "Killing Your Time", "Dead On A Vine", "Damned If You Do" and all the other songs though.

But as I said, my main interest was the bonus track "Never Grow Old". I guess I should've given the song title more attention when I saw the press release but for some reason it didn't resonate with me. But it sure as hell did when I heard the song. In fact I played the song 4 or 5 times in a row.
And each time I did, I found myself exclaiming, to myself, that the lyrics almost sound like a goodbye note from Mike Howe. It's weirdly prophetic to be hearing him sing the track knowing the circumstances of his death. My other reaction was to think that, given the lyrical content, it still might be a case of "too soon" for this track. Regardless of how much I wanted something NEW featuring Howe's vocals. Not that I'm not glad to hear this previously unreleased track, but it does make you feel at least a little uncomfortable at the same time.

I will say that I was a bit disappointed that there wasn't more to the CD booklet. For a release that was celebrating Mike Howe's now final run with Metal Church, some kind of liner notes might've been a nice touch.

Overall, with the exception of "Never Grow Old", The Best of Mike Howe 2016 - 2021 is kind of standard greatest hit collection. But when we are talking about Metal Church, the truth is that they are anything but "standard". As good as the song is when you look at it objectively, "Never Grow Old" does sadden me a bit with its apparent double meaning to the song lyrics. Once more the metal community needs to say RIP Mike Howe.