I had a bit of an odd time with this band, I used to love them when they where played on MTV’s 120 minutes back when I was 18 and even video’d them but it took me a good 20 years to get around to buying anything by them and when I did eventually order the George Best album from Amazon it turned out to be a misaddressing and the album actually contained a powerpoint presentation of the dangers of alcohol abuse by the drinks manufacturer Diageo, Ironic really considering what killed George Best. I read that this album was originally recorded under the name of David Gedge’s current band Cinerama but on listening to it he decided it was to dark and released it under the his old bands name instead, to be honest I don’t care its just sublime whatever the name on the cover.

David Gedge is a fine writer of words, I don’t know if he writes anything other the songs but he should, no songwriter I have ever heard can write about the frustration and complexity of emotions involved with love and relationships in our time, no other singer can then deliver them with the fragile awkwardness of emotion as him either. When you couple this with a rich orchestral sound and heavy overloaded guitars and fine production values, there is left a spinning silver disc of joy and melancholy fit for inducing introspection and release.

In summary

You can probably tell that I rate this as one of the most complete and beautifully crafted pieces of music that has ever graced my heart, quite why it is so underrated I will never know.