Shock Horror !

For years, Shock Horror! was a difficult-to-find cult item, known to Soft Boys enthusiasts as the work of that other Soft Boy genius, Kimberly Rew (the other being Robyn Hitchcock). The band would reach greater mainstream success as Katrina and the Waves, and Katrina Leskanich joins in the majority of the tracks here, but there’s a tougher sound driven by Rew’s guitar-heavy pop. “Going Down to Liverpool,” which would become a hit for the Bangles, is in its finest form here. But the real excitement is contained on the previously unreleased sessions from 1976 where Rew, singer Rob Kelly and drummer Alex Cooper perform as a power-pop band as gritty as Big Star on tightly-harmonized pieces such as “Emerald,” “The Ship” and the somber mid-tempo “My Friend Consuelo” (complete with ‘70s- styled guitar solos.) In between is an early version of “Brown Eyed Son” and other underground classics, such as the pounding “Strolling On Air” and the roots-rocking “I Caught The Milk Train.”