Nature Film

05/12/1998 3:00 AM, Yahoo! Music
Tim Sheridan

It's an unusual move to cover your own songs on a studio album, but that's just what Scrawl pulls off on their latest LP. Revitalizing six tunes from early discs that are now unavailable makes Nature Film a sort of cockeyed retrospective for this 13-year-old outfit. Happily, it's a proud history. While a couple of tracks sound rather dated (such as the Bangles-style jangle of "Charles"), many of these tracks have improved with age, like the easy-rocking "Standing Around," originally from 1987's Plus, Also Too . Fortunately, the new songs are the strongest on the disc, both lyrically and structurally. There's even a loving cover of PiL's "Public Image" smack in the center of everything. The nice balance of old and new here makes the album play like a bridge to the future rather than a longing glance at the past.