When I first saw this “new” Dandy Warhols album on the list, I leaped on it like a hungry “playful” lion leaps on a stupid journalist. However, there turned out to be just one issue. It wasn’t NEW new – just an old album that never saw the light of day back in the Dandy dark ages – and is ever so slightly different and lovely.

Turns out a skirmish between the band and their record company back in 2003 meant the alt-stoner-rockers’ take on their treasured songs was squelched in favour of what the company wanted. According to the Dandy’s own website, this album was recorded back in 2002 in Portland. Famed mixing engineer Russell Elavedo of New York’s Electric Lady Studios mixed the tunes into this collection of gems which were presented to Capitol. The Dandys loved it. Capitol did not. They remixed it and it was released as the seminal and beloved Welcome To The Monkey House.

The decision to release the album on last month, according to the band, had everything to do with Bastille Day: “All I know about Bastille Day is: I live above a creperie, and on Bastille Day that place is bonkers busy with sexy people eating crepes on the sidewalk,” one member writes. “I like to think Bastille Day is about hot girls and guys eating crepes with one hand and smoking a cigarette with the other hand while drinking sooo much wine with the third hand … with that in mind I think it’s fitting that we have selected The Dandy Warhols Are Sound for release on July 14th, 2009.” Indeed.

This album features gems including Scientist, We Used to be Friends, The Last High and I’m Over It – tracks many of you will know and love, with no real surprises to be had heard. On this version, however, the sound is ever so slightly stripped back, occasionally slower and less “produced” sounding, so will appeal to those who prefer a more garage, fuzzed-out sound to smooth for bands like this. It would actually be a good purchase for people with little or no experience of the Dandys, as it has most of the best singles on it. Otherwise, only the obsessive types among you who need to own every album ever released by an artist will salivate over this one.