Peppermint Heaven release their sophomore album, Curious Things through Megahit Records. The LP contains 11 songs (45 min, 48 sec).

Something, which is becoming increasingly familiar with review copies, almost spoiled my enjoyment of this release. We are increasingly receiving mp3 files for review where the content isn't properly formatted to play in iTunes. In this instance the album tracks were ordered alphabetically and two of the songs were labelled wrongly. The result was that on the first play though I really didn't rate this album at all. The tracks just didn't seem to flow right.

So I went online, found the correct play order and rearranged the music in iTunes and found that the album flowed much better. It's odd that a band will spend so much time and effort to carefully plan the playlist, only to release review copies that just seem to be thrown together without any care. This is one of the reasons why we prefer to review from CD copies.

As with the band's debut album, Precious Things, Curious Things offers another slice of retro '80s nostalgia. It really does feel like the band have captured the essence of the era, but brought it up to date for a modern audience.

These a nice mix of styles running throughout this album, and if you were a teenager in the '80s then this will remind you of so many classic bands and songs from that era.

8

Nick Smithson