Various - This Is Not Retro, This Is The Eighties Up To Date (TINR)

The best website for eighties music is by far remembertheeighties.com, which has been a labour of love for Richard Evans for several years. It remembers the decade from a British perspective for a start, and has tracked down many singers and bands that time might have otherwise forgotten.

So it’s only right that he gives a platform for some of them and the new material they’re working on today. So where are they now? Well Howard Jones is in euro trance territory. Kajagoogoo have bought a drum machine and headed a long way off from Ellis Beggs and Howard. Peter Cox is sitting firmly in the middle of the road. The Alarm, though, are exactly where you last saw them, and haven’t dropped any quality control. Perhaps most impressive is a delicate and melodic new one from Pete Coyle of the Lotus Eaters.

You can’t help but skip on with a sense of browsing a ‘Friends Reunited’ for your record collection - and find out what everyone else is up to these days. My only worry about this album is commercial – would a Sigue Sigue Sputnik fan really be interested in something with Modern Romance on it? Either way, if you want to catch up with everyone from Nik Kewshaw to Heaven 17 to Toyah, this is the place.