Yes, thanks to Suibhne for getting the ball rolling - I didn't realize he was a poster here and intended no disrespect with my comments about the gabbled effect that's evident to anyone who knows the songs well.

Most of the tapes I bought from Peter's gigs are of very poor quality, being copies of copies of copies and suffering from the consequent degradation of quality and accuracy.

The speed increase can easily be measured by comparing the timings of three versions of the first verse of "We have fed our sea for a thousand years", measuring from the first syllable of "We", to the final syllable of "Full".

Taking the song on CD 2 of Wake The Vaulted Echoes as a reference version (as it's an official release), the timing is: 1:03

The FLAC is 1:04

Suibhne's version is: 00:59

So there's a full 4 seconds difference in just a single verse.

Likewise, the first verse of The Death of Nelson on CD 2 of Wake The Vaulted Echoes (measured from the first syllable of "On", to the last syllable of "War"), is: 00:34.1

The FLAC is: 00:34.3

Suibhne's version is: 00:31

Again, there's a difference of 3 seconds in a single verse (it's much more over the entire song).

But the speed of Suibhne's version isn't constant. It accelerates even more noticably at certain points - the piano intro to Andrew Barton for example, sounds positively manic and the singing is a half-tone too high (as Pip Radish correctly observed of other songs).

For the most part these are bitter, introspective ballads and I think that makes PB's measured and reflective pace all the more essential to their correct interpretation.