Considering Mansfield, Britain's
B-Movie by and large "peaked" with a pair of low charting UK singles (1981's "Remembrance Day") and the slightly more renown "Nowhere Girl" a year later, you'd think that the quartet in question would have taken the inch they were accorded and attempt to stretch that out to a proper mile (or heck, maybe just a meter). Truth be told it wasn't for lack of trying, and though a debut album, presumably to drop later in '82 by Phonogram Records, was never actually slated for public consumption (at least not in the first half of the decade) B-Movie nonetheless tracked enough quality tunes to make it a legitimate proposition. Due to a band roster shakeup, and concerns from Phonogram over potential sales demand, said "album" was shelved - for some 40+ years in fact. B-Movie eventually reemerged in reconstituted form, circa 1985, with a full length of predominantly fresh material landing on Sire in the guise of
Forever Running, but much of the original hoopla surrounding the band had fizzled, and listeners on both sides of the Atlantic never quite took to the gussied-up, synth-pop penchant of this particular era.
Regrouping in the 'teens for 2012's The Age of Reason, and 2016's Climate of Fear, B-Movie were a going concern again, and have been an intermittent live presence ever since. Even with a successful reboot under their belts, the hunger to give the album-that-never-was a formal release never completely subsided. It took some legwork, but upon finally obtaining the rights to these aforementioned vintage recordings they've finally arrived under the umbrella of the ten-song Hidden Treasures. Despite a copious amount of New Romantic pigeonholing (both during and after their '80s halcyon era), B-Movie's nascent efforts in the studio revealed a quartet distinctly separate from the A Flock of Seagulls and Naked Eyes of the world, conceding much to the post-punk sphere, occasionally even wandering off further from the reservation than that. Case in point, would be Treasures' opening salvo, "Citizen Kane," has more in tandem with the Psych Furs and the Teardrop Explodes than say, Depeche Mode. Treasures... is bejeweled with no shortage of keyboards, rather moderation is the key watchword.
Further in, the going gets even better, with the driving "Marilyn Dream," and the lusciously melodic "Crowds" weaving in plenty of deftly crafted panache. Naturally, signature B-Movie numbers "Nowhere Girl" and "Remembrance Day" make an appearance, without necessarily dominating the proceedings. Treasures... bears no small semblance of diversity ensconced within it's ten proper cuts, and furthermore there's a phalanx of supplemental material to be had, entailing remixes and some abandoned but promising song ideas. B-Movie conjured up something aesthetically satisfying here without succumbing to the gratuitous extravagances their era was all too infamous for. Absolutely no small feat in my book. Hidden Treasures is available from Bandcamp, Rough Trade, and Amazon, and check out the band's official site here.
I've never been a huge mark for "singer-songwriters." I'm not sure how/why my wet noodle has a tendency to differentiate, scrutinize, and perhaps even prejudice me to steer towards "bands" as opposed to solo-endeavors. Ultimately several have broken through over the past few decades Laura Veirs, Mike Viola, Emm Gryner, and the dearly departed Nick Drake and Tommy Keene. Substantial as the catalogs of those go-it-alone troubadours are, I'm still naturally inclined to gravitate to full ensembles. In 2023, I enthusiastically added
Chris Church to my informal roster of reliable singer/scribes, thanks to his then-current sleeper LP
Radio Transient. Perhaps it was because that record not only bore the heft of a full-fledged 'combo,' so to speak, the compositions in themselves were resonant and thoroughly engaging.
On
Obsolete Path he's spun another web of twelve poignant songs, this time with an overarching sobering hue, albeit not the self-pitying variety. I can't point to much in the way of convenient parallels to Church. Faint glints of Matthew Sweet, Tommy Keene, or pre-controversy Ken Stringfellow seep in, yet if there's any power-pop slant here it isn't purist so much as respectfully adjacent, a la Gin Blossoms. The hooks are abundant and incisive, though they're rarely the centerpiece. Our protagonist gracefully applies the pinstripes of '80s modern-guitar rock on "Life on a Trampoline" and "I'm a Machine," summoning a transporting ambience in the process. Bittersweet melancholia is tattooed over virtually every square inch of ...
Path, evidenced on the vigorous "Sit Down," and later, this sentiment works just as effectively amidst the acoustic gestures of "Tell Me What You Really Are." "Running Right Back to You" and "I Don't Wanna Be There" strike something of a middle ground, but this is hardly an album of extremes. Writ large,
Obsolete Path is however persuasive, empathetic, and occasionally even visceral.
Bandcamp and
Big Stir have you covered for physical and digital, and you can obtain it immediately.
