Purity of Essence marked a successfully harder-rocking return to the pub, with a bunch of really good songs -- mostly covers this time -- that benefit from crisp new wave production, including the
Bacharach/David tune "Little Red Book,"
Randy Newman's "Have You Seen My Baby," and
Nick Lowe's "I Don't Want the Night to End." Unfortunately, the unremarkable, often half-hearted vocals fail to ignite the top-notch material, for the most part. [
Purity of Essence was issued in the U.S. in a rearranged order, dropping three songs in favor of three others, the most notable being a
Glenn Tilbrook (
Squeeze) original, "Depression," which was never recorded by
Squeeze. The U.K. CD retains the original tracks and adds "Name and Number" from the U.S. edition.] ~ Chris Woodstra