I Just Can't Stop It (1980), with its faultlessly wired opening track, was the first of three albums from the band, a fast-moving LP fuelled by punk, steered by rocksteady and cooled by soul.
Mirror In The Bathroom remains one of the tidiest tracks of the era and was a Top 5 single.
Propelled along by a guitar-and-bass riff rife with menace, the ode to self-involvement sets off at a cocksure clip and holds its line to the end.
A strong blend of New Wave and ska, it had been the band's preferred debut single but a safety-first attitude had seen it instead lead off with a cover of Smokey Robinson's Tears Of A Clown, which doesn't appear on the album.
There is, however, another homage to easy listening.
Can't Get Used To Losing You is given a lightly bouncing treatment, Dave Wakeling's vocal not a million miles away from Andy Williams' original take on a track that says much about the competing cultural influences on this Two Tone act, as does Wakeling's symbiotic pairing with co-vocalist ''Ranking'' Roger Charlery.
But this mixed-race, mixed-age band (saxophone player Lionel ''Saxa'' Martin was 50) could unite over one thing: The Winter of Discontent was fresh in the memory, and there remained much to say about England's political and social climate.
Two Swords and Click Click address the reality and futility of violence, Big Shot the ''greed is good'' disciples who kept the Conservatives in power, and Stand Down Margaret the inevitability that the Right's warrior queen would fall. In this context, the album captures the spirit and energy of a community determined to stand together in defiance of its oppressors.
