The Sweet Blockbusters (nd 74313)

Featuring seven original studio albums and two discs of rarities, ‘Sensational Sweet (Chapter One: The Wild Bunch)’ is set to be the most thorough account of glam icons Sweet yet. Fully documenting the classic line up (Andy Scott, Steve Priest, Mick Tucker and Brian Connolly) the nine disc set includes 1971 debut studio album ‘Funny, How Sweet Co Co Can Be’ and the five following album…

A rare and collectable 2-on-1 LP, originally released in the 1970s and featuring two top fun groups from that wonderfully colourful decade, is now revived and remastered on one fun-packed CD. The Sweet, regular chart toppers and the ultimate Glam Rock heroes, are represented here by 12 rare tracks, including The Lollipop Man and All You Ever Get From Me . The Pipkins unleashed the highly popular and humorous Gimme Dat Ding , a Top 5 novelty song in 1970. It's featured here with 7 other songs, including Yakety Yak and 2 rare Single B-sides. Booklet features liner notes by respected author and journalist Chris Welch. Expertly remastered, superb sound, top quality reproduction - The best in the business!

Oh, My Girl, the second album by singer/songwriter Jesse Sykes and her band the Sweet Hereafter – led by Phil Wandscher – picks up where her debut, Reckless Burning, left off. Songs are played at cough-syrup tempo, production is sparse, instrumentation equally so, offering just enough of a frame for the melody and lyrics to hang themselves on, and everything, absolutely everything, is underplayed. There is plenty of dynamic tension, but little to no dynamic range. Yes, this is a good thing. Sykes' ghostly voice, which hovers about her words more than inhabits them, has enough old-world folkiness, raw – if intentionally muted – willingness, and lonesome country pain in it to carry off these tunes with authority. Produced, mixed and engineered by multi-instrumentalist Tucker Martine, Oh, My Girl is full of slow, dipping passion, moody expressionism and poetic smarts to make it stand out in a sensual, narcotic way from the rest of the gothic alterna-twang pack. And one more thing: Sykes has more emotion in the grain of her halting, cracking voice than a whole army of Margo Timmins'es – so let the comparisons stop now, please.

Initially created from the ranks of a group of 60s female background session singers that at one time included Dionne Warwick, her sister Dee Dee, adopted sister Judy Clay and Just One Look singer Doris Troy, The Sweet Inspirations became an official Atlantic recording artist after being the label s go-to studio backup vocal group for many of the label s primary artists including Aretha Franklin (with whom they toured in 1967 and 1968), Wilson Pickett, Solomon Burke, The Drifters and Esther Phillips among others.

Taking what talents they've garnered from previous bands such as Hominy and Whiskeytown, lead singer Jesse Sykes and guitarist Phil Wandscher are onto something far bigger than the two could have foreseen. The opening title track lends itself as much to Margo Timmins as it does to a latter-day Lucinda Williams à la "Lonely Girls" in its almost morose tempo and arrangements, making the nearly seven-minute song glide along effortlessly and, to the listener, far shorter. The following numbers offer the same barren sounds, evoking images of members recording the songs in a log cabin. The well-trodden but solidly produced tracks never waver, especially "Doralee" and the slightly upbeat, honky tonk of "Lonely Hill." Resembling a trace of Neil Young's "Harvest Moon," the tune discusses heartbreak over a cross between Appalachian music and traditional country twang. "Don't Let Me Go" is another fine gem that doesn't stray too far from Sykes' strong points.