For a while in 1994, people called The Bluetones the next Stone Roses. They had a softness to their playing which reminded many of the less rock moments of said Manchester fourpiece, and a rhythmic finesse and a melodic quality that was quite charming – albeit for just their first three singles.
But Hounslow’s greatest musical exports never made the big time, perhaps too easily brushed away under the era’s Anglo-mania. It’s a shame, because those early records stand up even today. A 1994 session for John Peel provides Slight Return, all punchy chorus and lilting verse. By the next year the quality fog had still not lifted, as Glad To See Y’ Back Again? attests. But things turned quickly. Much like the Roses, the rock set in, and Solomon Bites The Worm tried hard to enforce a Zep angle on a band who should have, if anything, gone folkier.
A cover of the long forgotten Webb Brothers’ I’m Over & I Know It suggests there’s more love in the making of this disc than many of the recent BBC sets. But time�is a cruel judge and even the most mutually, selectively achieved tracklistings can’t hide that fact.
