By the mid-80s everyone's favourite pop-punk band The Undertones were no more. Whilst singer Feargal Sharkey pursued a briefly successful pop-soul solo career, guitarist brothers Sean and Damian O'Neill took a different route whilst staying true to their initial punk beginnings. Once again the music was riff-based but this time the guitars sounded angrier and grittier rather like a Northern Irish Josef K. 'Babble' is their second album and is excellent because of its sheer variety; so for every big, obvious chorus ('Big Decision', 'Belly Bugs') there were slower, more introspective moments (the sinister 'For What It's Worth' and 'Inside') and then there were the frantic, intense classics like 'Creeping To The Cross' and 'Static'. 1987 was a lean year for inventive guitar rock but That Petrol Emotion provided the energetic zenith to Bon Jovi's airbrushed nadir. Sadly the record-buying public disagreed but that makes this re-release all the more cherishable.