Ah, the difficult second album! This was the follow-up to the band's self-titled debut, coming out three years later. It received mixed reviews at the time and is less revered than their debut, despite hitting number 1 in the UK album chart.
I remember we got Sky TV in 1990, which gave me access to MTV for the first time. My abiding memory of that time is that the same few songs seemed to be on repeat: 'Sacrifice' by Elton John, 'Love Shack' by The B52s, and, weirdly, the first single from this album, 'Words'.
'Words' is a decent song (one I appreciate A LOT more today), but seeing this little band from my hometown rubbing shoulders with the big hitters on MTV Europe confused me at the time. It was an artsy video; maybe that's what got them on the A-List.
Side A of this record includes the three singles ' Words', 'I Found Out', and 'Greenbank Drive'. Greenbank Drive is one of my all-time favourite tracks. It is a beautiful, optimistic song about love. The remixed version is even better, and I bought it on CD as a single when it came out in late '90.
Side B starts with 'Community Of Spirt', which builds into a riot of noise that grabbed me the first time I heard it.
Honestly, the record's second half isn't as strong as the first, but 'One More Baby In Black' hits hard. Curiously, the album closes with the song 'In My Hour Of Need', which I genuinely thought was a hymn cover - not my favourite song on the record, in all honesty!
There is hardly a wrong note on their debut album, but there are a few duff tracks on this follow-up. The production on the album is fantastic, though, as is the quality of this copy I got from Discogs for less than a tenner delivered. Plenty of decent copies are available at sensible prices if you are tempted.
Tracks To Try: Man Don’t Cry’, ‘I Found Out’, ‘Greenbank Drive’, ‘Words’, ‘One More Baby In Black’
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