80's Innocence Frozen In Time
G. Lewis | NJ | 10/09/2005
(5 out of 5 stars)
"Ah, if you are in your 30's, you probably wish we could all go back to the time when bands like Friends Again (and Orange Juice, and The Bluebells, and.....) were in motion. The sounds of Friends Again is lilting, soulful, orchestral and majestic. There is a fragile beauty in most of the compositions, a feeling of looking at something wondrous for the first time. If you remember what your first crush felt like, well here it is in music......
"State of Art" is the finest pop song of the 80's, period."
Close To Perfection
Mon G. Buhigas | Galicia | 04/03/2007
(5 out of 5 stars)
"In a perfect world Chris Thomson would be hailed as a true genius. In a perfect world his current project, The Bathers, should be a permanent reference to anybody whose love for music goes beyond the mainstream hit makers and other easy-listening experiments that enjoy lots of airplay and huge bank accounts.
James Grant, Thomson's partner in Friends Again, also deserves his own credit mainly for his solo albums but also for some of his more obscure production under the name Love And Money.
Friends Again and their only album Trapped And Unwrapped was the perfect introduction to what was to come later. State Of Art should be in every compilation of the best songs in the history of pop and the rest of the album is full of gems, rich in taste and flavour, of jangly pop with such luminosity and beauty that it makes you feel it is worth revisiting these songs again and again.
This Japanese edition includes six extra tracks that make a significant addition to the original masterpiece. As underrated as The Bathers and as necessary too."
