A QUICK SMOKE AT SPOT'S

A lot of good bands release once in a while one or two albums containing b-sides or songs that were discarded in the end when making the selection for an album. That's exactly what this album is, a compilation of leftovers made between 1986 and 1990.

If you take a look at the reviews from the albums of this time stage (that is, "Starfish" and "Gold Afternoon") you know what are you going to find, in most cases pieces of the most commercial and straightforward (and in some cases unfortunate) material from The Church. As it happens with most albums of this kind, you can find a bit of everything. Songs that were unfairly forgotten (like "Frozen and distant","Forgotten Reign" or "Ride int the Sunset") that could have had a place in the dissapointing "Gold Afternoon Fix" to make it better or could even have made of "Starfish" the masterpiece it wasn't. Others that were appropiately put apart ("Dream", "Texas Moon" (this one was curiosly included in the Greatest Hits album), "Hunter"). And also pieces of curiosity like "Anna Miranda", which actually was the song that inspired the hit "Under the milky way".

This album by itself is not exactly a consistent studio work and it doesn't has the cohesion a kind of effort like that should have. After all we are talking about a compilation. But, in some sense that is the charm this kind of records have. I think this is an album that every fan of the group should at lest take a look at, because we can see how sometimes rockstars are not specially good at choosing songs for their records. And for those who are not fans, this is an enjoyable set of art rock songs.