Time Has Come 1967-1973

Like many large CD box sets, The Time Has Come is not quite a best-of or a rarities compilation, but something in between. That warning given, it also has to be added that as such things go, this four-CD, 65-track set — drawn exclusively from their 1967-1973 recordings, and ignoring any reunion efforts — is one of the best. For one thing, it does include quite a bit of rare material that serious Pentangle fans will want to have, including an entire disc of previously unreleased live, television, and film recordings from 1970-1973; a few more unreleased soundtrack bits and studio outtakes; and BBC sessions and B-sides that, while previously issued on CD, might not be in every Pentangle admirer's collection. Yet it doesn't lose sight of their strongest and most popular material. Most of their most essential songs are represented in either the familiar studio form or as a live/BBC/TV recording, although the absence of a few standout tunes like "Lyke-Wake Dirge" and "I've Got a Feeling" hurts a bit. The journey's also made more interesting by the inclusion of a few tracks from solo albums that John Renbourn and Bert Jansch issued during the 1967-1973 period. The devotion of the entirety of disc three to all 19 songs officially issued from their Royal Festival Hall concert of June 29, 1968 (12 of which were first released as part of their 1968 Sweet Child album, the remaining seven of which showed up on a 2001 expanded CD reissue of that record) might seem to give that material inappropriate weight.