Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *

The past is a foreign country which often requires second thoughts on passing through. The urge to reconnect with that which was once all consuming, now should have signs strewn at intervals and a high voltage electric fence permanently switched on, an armed guard or two subtly pointing out to the unwary the issues to be found within. Yet for those that seek understanding of where the past has brought them too, the signal, the bell that tolls is more akin to that of the Poptone and it is one that rings out in symphony and pleasure.

It is in the understanding and relish of the past that Poptone release their self-titled debut album, that the adventurous previously sought, are now breaking through in a new direction, and one that is strangely familiar, wonderfully recognisable, and one that sees Bauhaus, Tones of Tail and Love on Rockets’ Daniel Ash and Kevin Haskins team up with Kevin’s daughter Diva Dompe.

Poptone is a union of souls, the message they search for is engraved on their hearts and one that, like many others who hear the call of the past and realise that is not about nostalgia; it is in part about the enigma of a crushingly excellent band that was cut short, and about embracing, wholeheartedly, the future. It is a clear and defining statement which sees Diva Dompe take on the bass parts of the original songs by Tones of Tail, the measure of the once was and the one to come surely to be viewed as equals, to be seen as seamless and quite superb.

In a double album that looks to the past as well as the future, songs such as Ok This Is The Pops, Movement of Fear, Happiness, Lions, Performance and Ball of Confusion give thanks for the resurrection, of the chance to breathe, but also revels in what surely must be, the forthcoming attraction to which listener’s will surely subscribe too.

Poptone is the result of why we look to the past to draw inspiration from in today’s world, an impending smile as the border guards are withdrawn, as the signs that once decried the movement into the battlefields of the memories that were sepia to the touch, now, can be seen as the flourish, the beauty of what could again be; a brutally charming album, memories to once again love.

Ian D. Hall