Latest CD releases reviewed

THE ONLY ONES
The Only Ones ****

Baby's Got a Gun ***
Sony Music

Now probably lost in the mists of time, The Only Ones were that most peculiar of British new wavers. Like contemporaries The Stranglers, they were no spring chickens, and some had even spent time with acts that were surely loathed by punk's new vanguard of cool. Yet for all the mutton-dressed-as-lamb barbs, these reissues tell a different story, for not only did The Only Ones adapt to prevailing trends, they constructed beautiful songs of distress and despair for general consumption. Scattered across the three albums are sly digs at the type of friction that comes with living a life close to, on or over the edge. Their best-known song, Another Girl, Another Planet, is a sonic thrillride as well as lead singer Peter Perrett's personal hymn to heroin. Other tracks highlight a group mentality that fuses Lou Reed's dark side with Gary Larson's Far Side: pain and humour in bucketfuls. www.theonlyones.biz