"Unlike many previous reformations, this appears to be about more than a quick raid of your piggy bank to pay off the mortgage with some useless new tat and a bunch of old tat stuck together through contractual obligation."

Every band reforms these days. About the only people holding out are The Smiths, a band for whom acrimony is their bread and butter. After five years in the wilderness with nothing to show for it but a cameo in Batman, an obscure solo record and a period drumming in The Alarm, James are back. Instead of the usal cash driven rubbish, James present for the first time, the full scope of their work with a chronological, two hour collection of almost all of their hit singles (missing the first and third releases of “Sit Down” and the original version of “Come Home”) and a couple of newies. Instead of taking the old singer and the old guitarist and building a karaoke tribute to past successes with new identikit session musicians, James took their classic lineup from their artistic and commercial peak, and here they are again.

“Fresh as a Daisy” is a necessary history lesson. Previous compilations have ignored James earlier, spiky years as quirky indie darlings, favouring the wider expanse of The Big Music. Here, they evolve, they grow from a caterpillar into an astonishing butterfly. With the first two, long lost, Factory EP’s presented in their entirety, the start of this journey is the work of curiousity. By “Chain Mail” the band have started to find their melodic niche, moving into the age of vision and melody.

To be frank, you know what the main selling point of this compilation sounds like, and you’ve probably got it already – the uncool staples of indie discos with “Sit Down” and “Come Home” and “Laid” – widescreen visionaries with trumpets, unafraid to dream out loud and make fools of themselves in the process. (And fools they were, as anyone who has heard the slender but pointed “Destiny Calling” knows, they were unafraid of going too far). The main guts of “Fresh As A Daisy” are a perfect introductory point for the band, two hours of solid, superior stadium rock that showed up other acts who had a smaller vision but bigger ambitions for the charlatans they were.

Towards the end of it, James were starting to stagnate. “I Know What I’m Here For” is a lyrical fumble of scant substance, and “Getting Away With It” showed that the band perhaps needed to take a break to recharge after twenty years of constant work. The compilation comes to an end with two new songs from album number Umpteen (dependent upon your interpretation of what an album is), in the shape of the slinky “Who Are You?” and “Chameleon” that prove that the story is far from over, and that the flame still burns strong within them. You can’t go better than by starting here.

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