God knows they were never given any credit, but if potential was to be measured by pure instinctive ability -- not sales results -- then one could make a pretty good case for Tyneside, England's as one of the 's most under-appreciated and innately talented acts. Yes, it's a stretch but consider this: although they were rushed into the studio by to cobble together their first album -- 1980's -- on extremely short notice, came away with what, in retrospect at least, has to qualify as one of the 's better debuts. For , you see, were rather erroneously associated with that particular movement, and -based, melodically-inclined album highlights like and clearly peg them as disciples of , far more than or . In addition, as well as revealing the quartet's very tight and familiar musical interplay, singles like and the very amusing displayed the sort of songwriting confidence and maturity -- particularly in terms of their lyrics -- that most contemporaries sorely lacked. And even though the same compliments can't be bestowed upon every track here (witness the rather silly ), show great versatility on two surprisingly convincing : the well-crafted and the bluesy Sadly, none of the above would be enough to break to as large an audience as required by , which perhaps prematurely, dropped the band only a few months later. ~ Eduardo Rivadavia