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Songwriter/guitarist Kimberley Rew may be best known for slinging strings in the Soft Boys and tunes in Katrina & the Waves, but pop connoisseurs know he’s the author of the occasional solo album as well. The Best of Kimberley Rew collects 14 cuts from those LPs, covering a nearly 30-year time span, and makes a strong case for Rew’s strengths as a power pop auteur. As might be expected from a musician with as much experience as Rew has, he’s an excellent guitarist and a beautifully winsome singer, but it’s his writing that demands a spot in the pantheon. Intriguing story songs like “Your Mother Was Born in That House” and the gently respectful “Screaming Lord Sutch” stand cheek by jowl with trenchant ballads like “Old Straight Track” and “Honey, Is That Love” and psychedelic doodles like “White Horse,” with Rew sounding as at home with one as the other. Recent work like “A Girl Called String” and “The End of Our Rainbow” even shows a pronounced reggae influence while still fitting under the pop rubric. But his real forte is, of course, the jangly, hooky rocker, and anyone with a jones for that sound will fall deeply in love with “The English Road,” “Simple Pleasures” and “Stomping All Over the World.” Not every song here is genius, but when Rew fires on all cylinders, he proves his worth to be spoken of in reverent whispers.
