It has been three years since Prefab Sprout last graced the record shelves with a new studio album - the grand, celestial Andromeda Heights. Yet the compilation package that is 38 Carat Collection has seen the band tour for the first time in what seemed like aeons.
If there's a pop group that fuses Dylaneseque imagery with Costello-sleight-of-hand intricacy, it's north England's Prefab Sprout. Always the critics' favourites (my, aren't we the smart ones?), the heart and soul of the band is songwriter Paddy McAloon, a romantic lyricist at heart, but one not without a marked degree of barbed reality.
The band play Dublin's Olympia theatre today and tomorrow, and you can expect a set culled from their early years to the aforementioned Andromeda Heights. It looks like swoon time is here.
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