It’s the Honeycombs/All Systems Go

RELEASE
1990
LABEL
Sequel

Album Review

This is a strange -- but admittedly handy -- compilation of the group's two original LPs. It's handy in that it offers a fair profile of the Honeycombs' style and range during the most successful part of their four-year existence by way of their two official albums, when they were charting singles regularly (if not always very high) on both sides of the Atlantic. The main influence over their sound is, as expected, producer Joe Meek, whose work is in evidence throughout, mostly in the guitar stings and larger than life roller-rink organ sound permeating a lot of the music. But the members' abilities as singers and musicians do come through as well. The drawback to this collection is that none of the bonus tracks that appeared on the contemporaneous Repertoire reissues of the two albums -- some of which are well worth hearing, and superior to much of the original albums' contents -- are present here. This means that Meek or Honeycombs completists will either want to avoid this CD altogether and go for those two discs, or put up with the duplication. And as to the strange aspect, there are numerous errors in the packaging -- for one thing, the title of the group's first album was simply The Honeycombs, not It's the Honeycombs, and the producers have reversed the song contents under the two album titles on the back, so that the tracks for The Honeycombs are listed under All Systems Go and visa versa. It's all very confusing and may explain, in part, why this CD disappeared as fast as it did.
Bruce Eder, Rovi

Track Listing

  1. Colour Side
  2. Once You Know
  3. Without You It Is Night
  4. That's the Way
  5. I Want to Be Free
  6. How the Mighty Have Fallen
  7. Have I the Right
  8. Just a Face in the Crowd
  9. Nice While It Lasted
  10. Me From You
  11. Leslie Anne
  12. She's Too Way Out
  13. Ain't Necessarily
  14. This Too Shall Pass Away
  15. I Can't Stop
  16. I Don't Love Her No More
  17. All Systems Go
  18. Totem Pole
  19. Emptiness
  20. Ooee Train
  21. She Ain't Coming Back
  22. Something I Got to Tell You
  23. Our Day Will Come
  24. Nobody But Me
  25. There's Always Me
  26. Love in Tokyo
  27. If You Should
  28. My Prayer