The Tremeloes - Here Comes My Baby: The Ultimate Collection (CD)

All Music Guide

Although this threeCD, 82song package may not have everything the Tremeloes did (and has nothing from the era in which they were the backing group for Brian Poole), it might be the most comprehensive collection of their work, unless someone actually dares to put out a box set of every last damned thing they ever cut. Needless to say it's not for the casual fan, though it does contain all of their chart singles. Even considering that the Tremeloes were always a resolutely noninnovative poprock group who reflected rather than initiated trends, however, it can be a tough challenge to wade through all of this. First, there certainly is a quality gap between their big hits especially the best of these, "Here Comes My Baby" and "Silence in Golden" and much of the rest of their recordings, which were usually upbeat but fairly faceless period late'60s/early'70s British pop. Second, despite their prolific output, and despite writing much of their own material, not too much of a group personal...ity emerges, other than an urge to entertain and please using the sunnier pop vocabularies of the day.Those willing to take the plunge, however, will find a pretty wide range of approaches that the group tried on for size at one time or another, some from quite obscure flop singles, Bsides, and LP tracks. There is, for instance, the sole Decca single they did on their own in 1966 before moving to CBS, a folkrock cover of Simon Garfunkel's "Blessed," and "What a State I'm In," the Bside of their second single, which actually flirts with fuzzy poppsychedelia. Along the way you also get mediocre American soul covers; the lame Four Seasons knockoff "Shake Hands (and Come Out Crying)"; Swinging London mod pop with moderately ambitious lyrics; toedipping ventures into harmony psychedelia ("Suddenly Winter"); precious storytelling British baroque pop ("Norman Stanley James St. Claire"); and cherry singalong numbers with vaguely tropical rhythms. As the '60s waned, there were some occasional more serious moves afoot, like their cover of Bob Dylan's "I Shall Be Released" (actually a minor UK hit), its pensive folkrockish flip "I Miss My Baby," and the almosttough heavy instrumental bluesrock of "Instant Whip." Read more Less