The Associates: First Impressions

HE'S BACK. And although it's been two years, an aborted LP and a thousand rumors since we last heard the Associates' flighty, feisty pop, listening to the new single, the perfectly paced, 'Those First Impressions', it's as if Billy MacKenzie has never been away. Because despite the line-up changes that followed the departure of MacKenzie's associates Alan Rankine and Martha Ladley, there's no mistaking that this is the group that brought 'Party Fears Two' and the brooding beautiful Sulk LP.