Search - Waves :: Shock Horror

Katrina and The Waves debut (recorded as The Waves)-terrific

Wayne Klein | My Little Blue Window, USA | 05/11/2010

(4 out of 5 stars)

"A strong debut from Katrina and The Waves before their name change, "Shock Horror" features some of Kimberley Rew's early exceptional gems as a songwriter. Rew sings about half of the original EP tracks plus the four bonus demos (all of which have never been released before)and while he doesn't have quite the power house voice of his bandmate Katrina Leskanich, he has a more subtle voice as a performer.



The only song here that would show up on the band's Capitol debut is "Going Down to Liverpool" ably covered by The Bangles on their album although one or two other tracks here would show up on their first offical album "Katrina and The Waves" (not the 1985 Capitol release but an independent album that they released on Attic Records) so picking up this album is well worth it. Be warned however that this lacks the polished sheen of their Capitol albums as they self financed the recordings themselves and didn't really have the budget to make this as polished sounding as their hit albums.



There's a strong garage rock sound to the album which distinguishes it from their later albums.



Nevertheless, these have been digitally restored and sound quite good BUT this won't sound as good as most 80's productions simply because of the studio they used at the time, etc.(the production sound is similar to The Soft Boys albums that Rew recorded with Robyn Hitchcock's band as lead guitarist which isn't a suprise given that they were produced by Pat Collier who also worked on "Underwater Moonlight" The Soft Boys' last studio album). Rew's songwriting skills jumped by leaps and bounds and lathough there's clearly a Hitchcock influence on some of his early material, he clearly had also found his voice as a terrific and original songwriter himself."