Other Worlds by The Pretty Reckless: worth a quick visit, but no need to hang about

Other Worlds sees songs from The Pretty Reckless's Death By Rock And Roll reconfigured, with added Soundgarden and David Bowie

By Johnny Sharp
( Classic Rock )
published
The Pretty Reckless: Other Worlds cover art
(Image: © Century Media)

You can trust Louder Our experienced team has worked for some of the biggest brands in music. From testing headphones to reviewing albums, our experts aim to create reviews you can trust. Find out more about how we review.

As strong as the material was on The Pretty Reckless’s fourth album Death By Rock And Roll, it’s a little hard to justify it being remixed and padded out on a repackaged semi-new album, as it is here with covers, acoustic versions and remixes. 

On its own terms, it’s a perfectly tidy record: the reading of 25 doesn’t have as much sweeping orchestral drama as the original but is still effective, while the slower take on Got So High offers just as much emotional heft.

The acoustic take on the last album’s title track is also worth your time but does the world really need another David Bowie cover (Quicksand) even if Mike Garson is on piano? 

Likewise the takes on Soundgarden’s Loud Love and Halfway There are robust but, let’s face it, inessential. Other Worlds, then – worth a quick visit for die-hard fans, but no need to hang about too long.

Johnny Sharp
Johnny Sharp

Johnny is a regular contributor to Prog and Classic Rock magazines, both online and in print. Johnny is a highly experienced and versatile music writer whose tastes range from prog and hard rock to R’n’B, funk, folk and blues. He has written about music professionally for 30 years, surviving the Britpop wars at the NME in the 90s (under the hard-to-shake teenage nickname Johnny Cigarettes) before branching out to newspapers such as The Guardian and The Independent and magazines such as Uncut, Record Collector and, of course, Prog and Classic Rock.