Mud - As You Like It (Expanded Edition) (2025)

Review by Dave Thompson

Mud's sixth album could be regarded as very much a return to the spirit of former glories, a mass of rock & roll-era cover versions delivered in inimitable style by frontman Les Gray, and lacking only the magic touch of former backroom boys Nicky Chinn and Michael Chapman to bring the hits flowing once again. It could be, but it isn't. The year since Mud's last album had seen Gray spin off a solo hit with his cover of "A Groovy Kind of Love" and, though he never repeated the feat in his own right, Mud felt duty bound to try following suit -- with the usual large helping of Showaddywaddy thrown in for good measure. "Dream Lover," "Book of Love," and "Why Do Fools Fall in Love?" all feel like an unholy collision between the two styles, while the band's self-composed material is aimed so unerringly at the heart of the prawn cocktail brigade that any hint of charm or humor has been wrung out of the music, long before the producer finished layering in the last line of saccharin.