Galore＜Colored Vinyl＞

By the time of their third album, 1991's Galore, the Primitives found themselves out of step with the times and almost completely out of fashion. Their brand of cheery, simple pop came off as a little quaint by then and even though it's likely their most consistent album, it's also the one that marked the end of their initial run. Featuring a batch of very clean, very hooky songs that had a touch of Madchester in them, the Ian Broudie-produced Galore shows that even though they had changed dramatically since their noisy beginnings, their skill at crafting brilliant guitar pop was still intact. Two of the album's singles are classic Primitives pop, with "Lead Me Astray" featuring one of Tracy Tracy's better vocals. "Earth Thing," the third single, was a little bit of a stretch with its heavily baggy guitar riffing, but even its of-the-moment production doesn't sound too bad. The rest of the album is made up of bright and cheerful pop that may have been a little too unadventurous for the times, but was never less than lovely. The album's best songs, like the dreamy ballad "Empathise" and the folk-rocky "Smile," even show some new directions that the Primitives could have explored a little more if this hadn't been their last album. Even though it's a forgotten piece of a small catalog, and wasn't even released in the U.S., Galore is something of a hidden gem that fans of well-crafted, well-preserved '90s guitar pop would do well to check out. ~ Tim Sendra