The first three remastered CDs here soundtrack Cole’s Commotions-era trajectory from NME-feted jangling wordsmith (on the glorious 1984 debut, Rattlesnakes) to regular chart success (Easy Pieces) and eventual breakup after 1987’s more mainstream Mainstream. The early songs in particular assemble a dizzying procession of cultural references (“Read Norman Mailer, get a new tailor”) and idealised women (“She looked like Eve Marie Saint in On the Waterfront”). However, two discs of B-sides, demos and oddities (plus a DVD) uncover more to the story: a band who were set to be a honking-synth white funk outfit until Polydor scrapped ghastly projected single Down at the Mission. Cole later churned so out many great songs that some real crackers never made it past demo stage, before the band eventually beached themselves in a quest for reinvention.
