"I remember", said OCS singer Simon Fowler in a 1996 interview, "when we were dropped, our old label boss said there were no potential singles on the demo tape we'd just given him. One of the songs on that tape was "The Day We Caught The Train"." You can't blame the boy for gloating. When the Birmingham quartet recorded Moseley Shoals in their tiny home studio, there wasn't a label that wanted them. Perhaps that's why Fowler--one of Britain's most under-recognised lyricists --sounds like a man with nothing to lose on "The Circle" and the aching "It's My Shadow". R&B driven hits such as "The Riverboat Song" and "You've Got It Bad" paint a slightly misleading picture. In fact, there's a pastoral poignancy to much of Moseley Shoals which owes more to, say, Fairport Convention than mentor/mate Paul Weller. --Peter Paphides
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