FST 028

Ambitious Beggars - Beg

songs:

Man In A Suit

The Shadow

Welcome

Tryin To Be Young

Not Like Yesteryear

Tambourine

Years

Here He Comes

Crowned

Eyes

OK, every so often I get something wrong and man that I am I can admit and own up to it. This is one of those cases. This was a CD T baby owned and I tried to review it back when I was doing the bulk of the reviews in setting up this website. It is basically 5 released and 5 previously unreleased tracks which represent this bands past output. For some reason I was not receptive to it at the time, and even T told me I was nuts for not liking it. Why I don't know, because on a number of cuts such as The Shadow and Years singer Bob Kemps voice reminds me a lot of Paul Handyside from Hurrah, and the music does as well. (Hurrah being another forgotten band, who's early singles and first LP were titanic) Part of my problem might have been I reviewed this at a time when I was only getting into buying CD's. I only used vinyl until almost 2000 (still do) but my preamp was a CJ PV5 which has a great phono stage but the line stage isn't so hot. (it's from1985) A lot of things didn't sound great to me back then and it might be responsible. With my new rig I find I like this and the edginess I think I heard before is not here, so my gear was to blame. Some songs do get a little too blues riffy for me, but overall this is a very good release, it has some great pop gems and some lovely moments as well, and if my previous review put you off this, give it a reconsider. I did, and am I glad for it because this has some very worth while pop moments. So we've learned three important things: 1 - Your gear DOES matter. 2 - Vinyl is better than CD's and 3 - Don't close the book on anything, you might change your mind. Glad I found out in time, and you know, on their slower moments they do remind me of the Trash Can Sinatras. Well, don't stand there, go order this.

Hip-ometer Rating ~ 9.2

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