With the band having already plowed their way to the top of the U.K. charts with their debut album Spartacus, it's no wonder the Farm's follow-up, Love See No Colour, sounds so positively joyous. The 1992 set spun off four Top 50 singles, with the biggest of the batch, the enjoyable but superfluous cover of Human League's "Don't You Want Me," arguably the weakest of them all. Far better were "Mind" and "Rising Sun," both charting dancefloor fillers, the former driven by the same fabulous gospel styled backing vocals that also gives a soulful punch to "Hard Times," a jubilant number that oddly wasn't picked for singledom. Mostly, though, the Farm happily reaped musical seeds that were sown long before, harvesting fields of infectious synth pop, atmospheric New Romanticism, and bright new wave, and cross-breeding these with snippets of contemporary house. "New International" and the more experimental "Suzy Boo" flicker between proto-industrial and trance, "Creepers" crawls from classical to the Renaissance before hustling off to funky town, while "Tooth Fairy" flits between acid house and progressive rock. All told a strong album, equal to its successor, but oddly the set itself didn't chart, perhaps because by the time of its release, everybody considered the Farm a singles band. Their loss.
© Dave Thompson /TiVo