Deaf School - What A Way To End It All (The Anthology) (2003)

Castle's What a Way to End It All: The Deaf School Anthology is a sprawling, 47-track overview packed with all of the band's notable recordings, 12 BBC tracks, and extensive liner notes from Steve Allen. Hailing from Liverpool, England, new wave upstarts Deaf School encountered a much rockier road to fame than their fab-four forefathers. Bursting onto the scene in the late '70s, they clashed head on with the burgeoning punk rock movement, parading their raucous blend of vaudeville-pop and barroom art rock through the local pub scene and accumulating a devout fan base. Their failure to break through to the masses was due partly to their musical eccentricities and mostly to the fact that they were in the right place at the wrong time. Like fellow theatrical rockers Sparks, Deaf School featured an enigmatic front man. Enrico Cadillac (born Steve Allen) sounded like a drunk, working-class Bryan Ferry and utilized the Roger Daltrey "My Generation"-stutter to perfection on tracks like "Get Set Ready Go" and "Hypertension Yeah Yeah Yeah." Their later recordings show a band positively sinking under the weight of too many instruments and an excess of great ideas, especially on the brutal "Working Girls" and the Elvis Costello-like "Refugee." They may not have achieved what they were capable of, but they nearly died trying. Modern day contemporaries like Stew, Pulp, and the Solipsistics continue to bob at the surface of the industry wading pool, not because they can't rise to the top, but because bands like Deaf School made halfway the coolest part of the swim.