To paraphrase the
English Beat
's second album, wha'ppen?
General Public
's first album, released just over a year after
the English Beat
's split, was a solid piece of candy-coated
pop
featuring several terrific songs by singer/primary songwriter
Dave Wakeling
.
Hand to Mouth
, released barely a year and a half later after a couple of personnel shakeups, is a huge stumble in comparison. Continuing
All the Rage
's trend towards slick
production, but finally tipping over into bland anonymity, the album makes absolutely no musical impression even after several listens. Even worse, the songs are a uniformly dire lot, replacing the
reggae
and
Brit-pop
influences with newfound interests in American
R&B
and chart
. Even the few moderately catchy songs are flawed; the
gospel
-influenced single
"Come Again"
moves along cheerfully enough until an absurdly over-emphasized "boop boop!" shout in the chorus makes the whole thing sound simply ridiculous. Unsurprisingly,
broke up shortly after this album's release. The belated CD issue includes several negligible B-sides and remixes. ~ Stewart Mason