Released in the UK in September 1973, Sladest emulated recent Slade singles by going straight to the top of the charts. After relinquishing the summit and hovering around the Top Ten towards the end of the year, it climbed back up to the Number One spot in early 1974 in the wake of the huge success of their next single Merry Xmas Everybody. That seasonal smash wasn t included on the album, but Sladest did contain all of Slade s hits up to that point, as well as several singles released prior to their chart breakthrough and a handful of tracks from their underrated second album (released late in 1970), Play It Loud. Salvo s version has been expanded by the inclusion of three further highlights from the period concerned - the No. 2 hit My Friend Stan, its no-nonsense, rocking B-side My Town and the ingenious Django Reinhardt / Stephane Grappelli pastiche Kill Em At The Hot Club Tonite (the B-side of Skweeze Me Pleeze Me) - plus a previously unreleased version of Hear Me Calling, the track with which they opened their live show for many years. The latter recording, more tightly structured than the classic, build-to-a-roar Slade Alive version (though featuring an almost identical guitar solo from Dave Hill), lay entirely forgotten until recently discovered on a vinyl acetate which was once the property of drummer Don Powell - and serves to further strengthen the appeal of what is, to many, Slade s strongest album. Capturing the band at the height of the glam rock fame, it contains some of the very best pop songs of the seventies.