Album review: SLIK – The Complete Slik Collection (2 CDs)

Cherry Red [Release date : 11.10.24]

This is as much a story about two songwriters, Scotland’s Bill Martin and Irishman, Phil Coulter, as it is the story of Scottish band Slik who enjoyed a 3 year lifespan, 1975-1977. Martin and Coulter wrote the band’s hits, major and minor.

It was a turbulent time in the music business. With Pop and Glam, and NWOBHM and blues based rock all clamouring for the record buying public’s attention.

Not to mention the coming of punk.

Slik only ever released one (self titled) album, but laid down a number of tracks in the studio, many released as singles throughout Europe, attuned to the tastes of specific countries, like:

‘The Getaway’, Germany only.
‘Bom Bom’, Spain only.
‘Dancerama’, Germany only
and so on.

The album, the singles and further non album studio tracks have been shepherded into two CDs worth of Slik sounds.

The biggies are here of course, ‘Forever And Ever’, a no.1 hit in the UK. And ‘Requiem’, a top forty UK hit. Both written by Martin and Coulter, and both hits throughout Europe.

The duo were responsible for Sandie Shaw’s Eurovision winning song, ‘Puppet On A String’, and Cliff Richard’s Euro runner up, ‘Congratulations’.

More relevantly, they wrote and produced hits for the Bay City Rollers, Dave Dee, Los Bravos, Tommy Quickly and many other chart aimed seventies pop artists.

Slik experienced the same chessboard machinations as did many others, as members moved in and out of the band, eventually landing on a solid lineup of Midge Ure, Billy McIsaac, Jim McGinley and Kenny Hyslop.

Cambuslang man Ure went on to greater success with Visage, Ultravox and solo material, ultimately becoming a Band Aid founder with Bob Geldof.

The collection just oozes seventies’ pop.

‘The Boogiest Band’ is a Quo meets the Bay City Rollers in Sweet’s backyard belter.

Written by original band member Kevin McGinley, the perfect pop ballad, ‘Again My Love’ became the B side of ‘Forever And Ever’.. a veritable twofer.

There’s a toetapping, DJ remix/edit of ‘Requiem’ on the first CD, which is worth looking out for, and a select 3 track run of PVC2 tracks on CD2. PVC2 was the “punk” influenced band that Slik became, adapting and modifying their sound to reflect the evolution in popular music prevalent at the time.

31 tracks across the two discs, all released over three years in the seventies. A moment in time suspended in aspic. Worth a look. ***

Review by Brian McGowan

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