Purity of Essence marked a successfully harder-rocking return to the pub, with a bunch of really good songs -- mostly covers this time -- that benefit from crisp new wave production, including the Bacharach/David tune "Little Red Book," Randy Newman's "Have You Seen My Baby," and Nick Lowe's "I Don't Want the Night to End." Unfortunately, the unremarkable, often half-hearted vocals fail to ignite the top-notch material for the most part. [Purity of Essence was issued in the U.S. in a rearranged order, dropping three songs in favor of three others, the most notable being a Glenn Tilbrook (Squeeze) original, "Depression," which was never recorded by Squeeze. The U.K. CD retains the original tracks and adds "Name and Number" from the U.S. edition. The U.S. CD reissue in 1997 matches the U.K. edition.]

(by Chris Woodstra, All Music Guide)