ATOM BOMB YOGA In Past Times (Mystic)

"In Past Times" is the first album from this bizarrely-named London quartet who number Eddie Ashcroft (vocals/guitars), Sven Copeland (drums/percussion/vocals), Kate Hargreaves (vocals) and Graeme Holdaway (bass/vocals). The press release alludes that Sven "learnt his trade from a famous POLICEman" (wow, subtlety overload, run that past me again, I didn’t quite catch it etc. etc.) without suggesting that he’s in any way related to the other drummer with whom he shares a surname, although the booklet thanks one Sonja Kristina for "love and support"...not the same Sonja Kristina who married fellow Curved Air member Stewart Copeland in 1975? (No stone of investigative journalism left unturned, you’ll notice!)

Perhaps unsurprisingly, there is a definite Police lilt to the music of Atom Bomb Yoga, specifically the bouncy but bland enjoyable forgettableness of the non-hits on that band’s first two albums. Apparently "Eddie’s songs reflect the World today and the hopes and aspirations of the people who are born into it"...hmmm, thanks for that, but there are moments, such as the gentle despair of the single "Hubble", which suggests their is intelligence at work here, and that someday pretty good, although probably not great, things may come of them. And as Police-related obscurities go (speaking as someone who spent much of his early teens listening to albums by Klark Kent and Andy Summers/Robert Fripp pressed on him by Police-obsessed friends) there’s far worse out there.