BMX Bandits - The Rise & Fall Of BMX Bandits

There’s no “Fall” to our ears…

The sobriquet “purveyors of perfect pop” might get thrown around like confetti – and too often with little justice – but surely it was dreamed up in response to the fragile, even childlike, songs of Duglas T Stewart and BMX Bandits. For, to reach out for another cliché that aptly captures them, this “best kept secret” of pop has yielded delicate beauty time and again, as proven in this 23-song retrospective.

Members of Teenage Fanclub and The Soup Dragons have passed through the lineup, but the constant is Stewart, with his devotion to original songwriting craft and to music history’s overlooked gems. Those two endeavours, and the care bestowed on them by someone absolutely equal to the cause, is what makes this collection supercede expectations. Melodies which Brian Wilson would have been proud of nestle alongside elegant covers of songs such as The White Plains’ Baby Loves Lovin’.

The selection is wide-ranging, taking in singles and album tracks, but also including plenty of new or previously unreleased recordings, of which their version of Tom Waits’ I Don’t Want To Grow Up just has to be the most concise description of this band’s charming innocence as could be imagined.

5 stars 5 stars 5 stars 5 stars 5 stars

Elefant | ER-1134

Reviewed by Ian Abrahams
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