Rougher and rawer than this old English power pop quartet's otherwise fun singles and LPs, this 71-minute, 25-track collection of earlier demos, outtakes, and other rarities replaces such works as 1981's
Drop Out and 1983's
Mean Time as the definitive statement on a truly underrated '60s-infested band.
The Barracudas were looking back in the midst of a punk revolution -- covering
Burt Bacharach and
Hal David's "Little Red Book" just like
Love or
the Standells -- and succeeding just the same, probably because, like the unrelated but not totally dissimilar mod revival bands of the time, they brought a purely modern crunch and crackle to the thick guitars underneath the songs about girls. This is boy/girl punkish pop before it became an '80s/'90s staple!
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Jack Rabid, Rovi