Anthology

Album Review

Fourteen songs that sum up the brief mid-1980s commercial peak of this spirited power pop quartet. As one would guess from the cover art, most of the material comes off of their self-titled Capitol album, which is here complete but with its tracks re-sequenced, augmented by four cuts thrown off of Waves. Strangely enough, "Sun Street," "Sleep on My Pillow," "Is That It?," and "Tears for Me," all good songs from the latter, are here, but Kimberley Rew's "Lovely Lindsey," one of the album's highlights, is missing. That's something of a puzzlement, as the group was only on Capitol Records for two albums, after all, so it would seem to be difficult to overlook a key track — like a 15th song would have killed the compilers. Intrinsically, there is nothing wrong with anything here, although even within the confines of this collection, there's a fall-off in quality from "Walking on Sunshine," "Going Down to Liverpool," "Do You Want Crying," and "Tears For Me," although everything here is good listening, if not all equally memorable. There are no notes, but the sound gives full play to the group's obvious virtues, especially Katrina Leskanich's lead vocals, Kimberley Rew's crunchy, melodic lead guitar (which sounds like it's in your lap), and Alex Cooper's drums. Overall, this is a decent if slightly slipshod attempt to compile the band's best work, which will do until Raven or some other enterprising foreign label takes up the task.