Hurrah "Tell God I'm Here" (1987)

WIDESCREEN NOTHERN SOUL

• Another one for the `where are they now ?` file, the debut album by long forgotton geordie tunesmiths that bridges both tender epic balladeering alongside (North) East coast psychedelia. With Newcastle`s The Daintees and the greatly missed The Kane Gang, they were pushed at a time of Kitchenware Records so called mid eighties golden period which was best represented by Prefab Sprouts "When Love Breaks Down".

• "Tell God I'm Here" is a mostly fine opening gambit for a career that would peter out after one more album The Beautiful, though there is more than enough on evidence here to suggest why Hurrah were present as guests on U2`s The Joshua Tree tour. Widescreen stadium rock is the case levelled against, at a time when the tide had yet to turn against the likes of Jim Kerr and Co, but listen to the spine tingling energy of both "If love could kill" and "How high the moon" which can still give the curious more than a good reason to feel lucky if found when sifting through those second hand record racks.

• "Sweet Sanity" and "How many rivers" (the singles), are great crashing soul songs that show that ambitions were not necessarily financially motivated and if anything highlights the lack of concrete direction in the band.

Track-List in the Comments

Live perfomance from Hurrah