Purple Kittens is the latest album from ex Soft Boys/Katrina & The Waves Kimberley Rew and his partner, Lee Cave Berry and, as expected, it’s packed with excellent songs and some really groovy guitar. The latter is apparent from the off as Rew corkscrews some tremendous soloing into the album’s opening track, Penny The Ragman. On a song which is as quintessentially English as The Kinks’ Village Green Preservation Society, Rew celebrates a relative who was the cornerstone of her village’s social life and imbues it with a tremendous sense of mid sixties rock with its freak beat ending.

There’s much of the album which recalls earlier days. The flute which warbles amidst the slow-burn groove of Wrong Song recalls Traffic and Raspberry Ripple Ice Cream, with its circular riff and repetitive lyrics, is Rew’s attempt to emulate early sixties dance crazes which were often, for some reason, named after food or drink. I’m not too sure if you could actually dance to this as there’s a lengthy guitar solo, seemingly beamed  in from Mars, midway, but it certainly rips and roars and, who knows, it might be, right now, a dance hit in a Martian night club as they probably have different moves. Lee Cave Berry leans into this retro love as she lays out I Can Be Any Woman which was apparently inspired by her love of early Star Trek and which finds her in a sultry Eastern mood. Fittingly, here the band hit the Orient with Carnatic guitar and modalities, meandering into Donovan territory (without the tweeness) while Cave-Berry comes across as a less menacing Grace Slick. Digging in to his own past, Rew also unleashes a rabid cover of that Soft Boys staple, Kingdom Of Love with his guitar unearthing new sonic possibilities excavated from the original.

Elsewhere, the pair can delve into folk as on Too Much Love or pet loving whimsy on Unsatisfactory Cats while Growing Up Song is an acute and tenderly delivered rumination on the perils of instant digital gratification as “enjoyed” by the kids of today. Speaking of the kids of today, there’s a song here which speaks to recent losses due to covid. Black Ribbon is a gnarly rock’n’roll roustabout based on lyrics written by the grand kids of a friend of the duo who had succumbed to Covid. The words describe their grand dad well and Rew and Cave-Berry hopefully do them proud on this rendition. It is a homely element in this swell collection of songs which deserves to be heard far and wide as Rew and Cave-Berry continue to carve their idiosyncratic career.

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Mention The Soft Boys and most folk will associate them with Robyn Hitchcock, the idiosyncratic singer/songwriter who has gone on to carve a successful solo career. However, it was The Soft’s guitarist, Kimberley Rew, who initially became, well, not famous, but certainly commercially successful. Joining Katrina & The Waves, Rew penned their top ten chart hit Walking On Sunshine while another of his songs, Going Down To Liverpool also hit the charts when covered by The Bangles. In addition, a bizarre series of events led to Katrina & The Waves winning the Eurovision Song Contest in 1997 with a Rew composition, Shine A Light, a song originally written for The Samaritans!

On a solo note, Rew was out of the traps with a serious contender in The Bible Of Bop, an album recorded variously with his Soft Boys chums and The DBs and which remains somewhat stellar in its power pop power. Consumed by the Waves however, it was not until 2000 that Rew returned to recording under his own name, releasing several low key albums. By now he was accompanied by his wife Lee Cave-Berry (a musician with her own tale to tell including being the proposed bassist for a Bill Haley UK tour -cancelled when he died with Cave-Berry suggesting that the thought of having a female bass player did for him).

Anyhow, Sunshine Walkers, aside from its cheesy title, is a selection of songs that the pair have released over the past 20 years, alongside three from Bible Of Bop. It’s a generous helping, 21 songs spanning 70 minutes and while it leaps around genres somewhat, it’s a grand listen, serving to remind one that Rew is not only a killer guitarist but one of those somewhat unique songwriters who can channel  humour into songs while remaining well away from being a comedy act. Think of Neil Innes and indeed, Robyn Hitchcock.

We were unaware of Rew’s output, aside from Bible Of Bop, and it’s great to hear Hey War Pig, Stomping All Over The World and especially, My Baby Does Her Hairdo Long again. The latter is a stone cold classic. But venturing into the album we were blown away by the likes of Restless Ocean, a Neil Young like guitar epic and then Rew’s psychedelic guitar showpiece, Flower Superpower which has a Temptations’ sly funky groove wired into it. A cover of The Troggs’ I Want You is snotty as fuck with garage band chords thrashed out along with snarling solos.

The album kicks off with a great example of Rew’s off kilter approach as The Dog Song finds him pondering on whether pets have a philosophical or religious bent as the band hammer out a raunchy Stones cum Berry riff. Bloody Old England reminds one of Ray Davies or Steve Marriott’s cockney odes to English tropes while The End Of Our Rainbow is a McCartney like piano fuelled end of the pier romp. There are nuggets like this throughout the album. It makes Me Happy kicks off sounding like Wreckless Eric as Cave-Berry takes the vocals and Rew turns in a tortured solo and Backing Singer Blues has a loose limbed Rockpile swing to it. There’s no space here to mention all songs but it’s nice to note that the pair have the opportunity to celebrate their union on the sweet laid back vibes of Happy Anniversary and to state that the closing song, Simple Pleasures, is one of the finest jangled power pop songs we’ve heard in a long time.

Nicely packaged and with liner notes by Bucketfull Of Brains’ Nigel Cross, Sunshine Walkers is uplifting and, after months of lockdown, a real breath of fresh air.

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