by Dave ThompsonNot to be confused with the group's similarly titled U.S. debut LP, the third Rubettes album follows pugnaciously in the footsteps of its predecessor, blending the band's faultless eye for gimmick-laden hit singles with an ambition that utterly overrides their sugary pop personas. "Little Darling" and "Foe Dee O Dee" are the guilty numbers this time, and it says much for the band's own musical tastes that they are by far the weakest cuts on the album. For a true indication of the Rubettes' abilities, the opening "Judy Run Run," with its galloping drums and Beach Boys vocals, and the utterly foreboding closer "Dark Side of the World," a song that wouldn't have been out of place within the iconography of David Bowie's Major Tom, offer twin poles of both musical and emotional extremes that are a million miles away from the hits. Elsewhere, "I'm Just Dreaming" doesn't sound too far removed from a better-than-usual Badfinger ballad, with the group's well-honed harmonies building to almost Spector's Wall of Sound-esque extremes, while the electrifying "Put a Back Beat to That Music" steps back to the band's early fascination for '50s-style rock, married to an almost presciently punky arrangement. Lyrically, Wayne Bickerton and Tony Waddington are certainly guilty of enjoying "Roll Over Beethoven" a little too much, but still, it's an imaginative rocker. "My Buddy Holly Days," too, is a considerably harder-hitting effort than its title might suggest, blending regret and nostalgia with somewhat weightier consequences than you'd expect. None of which, of course, altered the average music fan's opinion of the group; love them or hate them, the Rubettes remained firmly tied to the teeny-glam tree, and once that trunk withered they were on their own. The Rubettes was their last album to even toy with the notion of chart success (it failed), while neither "Foe-Dee-O-Dee" nor "Little Darling" came even close to emulating the glories that were once the band's domain. Sometimes reputation can be a hard beast to battle.