While it remains to be seen what the future holds for The Temperance Movement, Covers & Rarities is one of those holding operations that should come as some relief to fans, pulling together a very credible collection of unnecessarily hard- to-find tracks.
In the case of The Temperance Movement, the high quality leaves you wondering why several of these 11 tracks weren’t included on albums the first time round. Kicking off with a previously unreleased and absolutely stonking version of Deep Purple’s You Fool No One, with Purple’s Ian Paice knocking seven shades out of the drums (and cowbell), the covers feature first, with a particularly punchy take on Led Zeppelin’s Houses Of The Holy coming a close second for sheer power.
Of The Temperance Movement’s own tunes, the dreamy Mother’s Eyes and Free-esque Turn should never have been mere debut-album-era bonus tracks. Likewise the sparky rocker Centrefold was criminally relegated to the status of a White Bear-era Deezer enticement, and the hooky, rootsy Do The Revelation was available only on Spotify.
Bafflingly, Covers And Rarities commits the same kind of crime by offering the previously unreleased and very fine Long Run as a twelfth, digital-only track. Nevertheless, it’s a mopping-up exercise definitely worth checking out.
