For every hero of the scene, there are plenty of hard working bands that fall under the radar. It’s not that they are lesser bands, it’s just that history prefers to tidy things up for a clear narrative. With the recent shuttering of legendary Hoboken music venue Maxwell’s, lots of ink has been spilled looking back at all the touring bands that graced that stage over its history. Yet the other important aspect is the local Jersey bands that called it home. The Feelies are the most often cited, but of course they aren’t the only ones. With nostalgia fever at a fever pitch, it’s an excellent time to discover other aspects of the Maxwell’s/Jersey scene. Luckily for the curious, Feelies associates Speed the Plough have released their exhaustive retrospective, The Plough & The Stars.

Speed the Plough shared more than just time and space with The Feelies. Members of both bands spent time in The Trypes and Feelies guitarist Bill Million produced Speed the Plough’s first two records, while guitarist Glenn Mercer played on the first album and drummer Stanley Demeski spent some time as a Speed the Plough member. Founded in 1984 after The Feelies reunited, thus forcing The Trypes to disband, Speed the Plough released four records on local labels before going on hiatus in the early ’90s. The band reunited in 2009, releasing two additional records and an EP. After the positive reception of The Trypes retrospective, Music for Neighbors, Bar/None decided to release The Plough & The Stars.

While the band could have simply released a simple compilation of would-be hits and called it a day, The Plough & The Stars goes beyond the call of duty. The set includes a 17-song “best of” CD pulled from the first four long out-of-print albums, plus a second disc containing six brand new songs from the Tag Sale EP, five live tracks from a 1993 appearance on WFMU’s Live Music Faucet, and if that wasn’t enough, 10 additional live tracks and an interactive version of the liner notes with links to more songs and videos. This isn’t an introduction for someone wants to dip a toe in. This set throws the listener into the deep end.

But if you’re looking to this set to provide insights into the early Maxwell’s scene, you’ll be sorely disappointed. As unique as the band sounds now, one has to imagine that they seemed as equally out-of-step back in the day. The instrumental mix of guitar, drums, flute, accordion, what seems like the occasional clarinet, as well as the swerving from folk-rock to orchestral pop to straight ahead rock numbers seems to exist in its own particular universe. Add to that the shifting vocals of various combinations of male/female harmonies and the one thing that this compilation makes clear is that Speed the Plough covered a lot of ground. Part of that may be simply due to the regularly changing line-up. A total of 26 members have floated through the band, with singer and woodwind specialist Toni Baumgartner and her husband and singer and accordion player John being the only constant members.

What’s striking about the collection is that throughout all the twists and permutations Speed the Plough has always been consistent. While The Plough & The Stars seems to play fast and loose with the timeline, there aren’t any jarring transitions. It can go from almost Renaissance Fair to fast and loose to folksy and it all makes sense. The live tracks add a necessary balance to the studio recordings, showing that there was some rowdy blood pumping underneath the very polite offerings on record. And the addition of the Tag Sale EP, where John takes a greater presence on the vocals, hammers home that the only constant for Speed the Plough is change. While The Plough & The Stars isn’t essential, it is a solid and interesting slice of the Maxwell’s scene that may otherwise have been forgotten.