OK, this is another one I've had for a while and sadly this one got shelved as well, and for nothing of it's own doing. I was (and suppose am) simply tired of 80's retro releases to such a degree I didn't even want to hear this. They all are beginning to sound the same, the recording quality tends to be awful, and to quote Phil Wilson "I carn't be arsed". On top of all this my misery with trying to bring the Chairs album to the light of day for 3 years now has me wholly pissed off. However, Uwe is a friend so I had to pony up and get to this already. After a deep breath and some furtive listening, I had to say this isn't recorded too badly. They must have recovered the original DAT's because while the dynamic range identifies it as an 80's recording, there is no noise, dropouts or crackles, and it doesn't sound like it's coming out of a shoebox. Further, a number of tracks on here are actually quite attention grabbing as well, such as Stain which has a really nice bass riff and melody line to it. On top of all that the songs here do not sound like every lost or forgotten C86 band you never heard of in the first place. (and usually for good reason) There is a uniqueness to their sound and songwriting which makes me wonder how the hell I missed this originally. The disc covers their career years from 87-89 and includes new unreleased tracks from 2003 which are VERY adult, modern and in one instance as sexy as all hell. There s a lot of variety on here that will remind you of a lot of bands from back then without sounding like any of them exactly, and it's all the good stuff. Well, dip me in mud. This was a diamond sitting in my pond that I was just ignoring. It just goes to show what happens when you pre-judge. This is a buy by all means release, and no mistake.

 

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