The heart of both man and the city beat big throughout "Hats."

Ever since I reviewed Left of the Dial: Dispatches from the '80s Underground, that boxed set of alternative rock chestnuts released by Rhino Records, I have developed a strong appetite for the sounds of alternative rock in what seems to be its peak decade. It's likely due to the way in which the words "alternative music" seem to encapsulate a broad variety of unique, musically distinctive forms of personal songwriting. After listening to that boxed set, I found myself baffled at the notion that bands like Prefab Sprout and Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark could sit side-by-side with pre-grunge torch bearers The Pixies and Jane's Addiction, Goth staples Bauhaus and Siouxsie & The Banshees, essential English acts The Jam and New Order, and countless others. The net was cast so wide, that it almost felt like anything could be considered alternative, the danger of such a label. In a way, the words "alternative music" became too vague to me, and therefore I understood the need for sub-labels.

At the end of the day, I just found myself wanting to listen to diverse, unorthodox, crafty forms of music. Sadly, I found myself in a post-"120 Minutes" world where the only real research was done via the Internet, which is as eerily addictive as television. Having watched VH1 Classic years ago for the block of music simply known as "The Alternative," I found myself enthralled by bands who I would later express curiosity with by plumbing their respective discographies. Two of them, Hunters & Collectors and Killing Joke (whose "Wardance" was on that Rhino package), have albums which I already reviewed on this site. A third act, The Blue Nile, entered late in the picture, but you know how it goes.

The Downtown Lights was my first exposure to the band. At first listen, I wasn't immediately struck. The drum machines and synthesizers made them sound interchangeable with The Human League or Howard Jones. The vocals sounded a bit too familiar, as comparable as Paul Buchanan's voice is to Peter Gabriel and Bryan Ferry. These were admittedly rash assumptions which I immediately put to rest by curiosity and the fair decision to hear the song out.

The result was yet another old school alternative rock band that I couldn't stop talking about for weeks on end. In that great big mental jukebox, "The Downtown Lights" became a popular selection. The song makes no bones about using admittedly retrograde musical technology, but there was more going on in that song than I initially gave it credit for. The synthesizers, for one, had a more brilliant sense of atmosphere and carried a particularly Gaelic lilt that tickled my ears upon additional exposure. The sequenced drum pattern made greater sense to me and I stopped resisting that as well. Finally, there was Buchanan's voice, fluent, vivid and able to express a heart's fullness of longing in even a simple line such as "It's all right." There was nothing mannered about his voice, a complaint one could convincingly level against Gabriel or Ferry. The Blue Nile were a group that I immediately revered, and I thought of Buchanan, the group's principal songwriter, in the same way as Paddy McAloon or Green Gartside. I couldn't wait to get a copy of HATS, the 1989 parent album, in the mail.

I was initially going to buy an import copy of HATS because there were no new copies being issued in America. If "The Downtown Lights" didn't break my heart enough, think of how I must have felt when I heard that HATS was out of print, the three dread words that also applied to coveted albums by Nick Lowe and even the band's own debut record, A Walk Across the Rooftops. And so I did order an import copy, only to find myself face to face with a used copy the A&M-distributed U.S. CD version at the Zia Records on University and Mill. I don't usually buy two copies of the same record, but some strange instinct just told me "Screw it." So now I officially own two versions of HATS on CD. Hokey and maudlin as this is going to sound, I probably won't give either copy until I meet someone I love enough to give it to.

It's odd that I mention this, because the core of the lyrics Buchanan writes on HATS follow the same template of urban romanticism and bittersweet early morning introspection. In the compilation book The Mojo Companion, Buchanan was quoted in regards to the ways in which the songs reflected crumbling real life relationships: "It was a desperately bad time for us. Fundamental shifts took place in our personal lives during HATS. And so I'd say that record's about reassurance. That's why 'It's all right!' crops up in the lyrics so often. It's patently about someone whose circumstances are far from all right." HATS was also recorded by the Glaswegian trio of Buchanan, Robert Bell and Paul Joseph Moore in the span of several years, during which they survived management quibbles that kept them out of the studio for nearly a year and legendarily disposed of an entire album's worth of material because it, as Buchanan said, "It just wasn't a true record. We fall back on our tricks - put more reverb on that, put more overdub on that. On our days off, we started to work on other things that seemed to have an authenticity about them."

By October of 1989, the record was released to critical praise (Q Magazine gave it a rare five-star recommendation) and modest success, with three UK singles, two of which were promoted via music video (I highly recommend finding the stunning clip for "Headlights on the Parade"). "The Downtown Lights" even managed to peak at #10 on the Billboard Modern Rock Charts in 1990. That same year, they even toured with one of their most famous fans, Rickie Lee Jones. But after 15 years, I only came to learn that the band's limited but impressive catalog was largely deleted in the U.S. You've probably heard some of these songs before. I can attest to hearing Annie Lennox's cover of "The Downtown Lights" at Panda Express one afternoon, and Rod Stewart managed to cover that one as well (thankfully not at the same time as when he got a hold on Tom Waits' Downtown Train). If you're familiar with the HBO show Six Feet Under, you've heard Craig Armstrong's version of Let's Go Out Tonight, which was also covered by Rick Springfield in 2005.

I can't help but steer you towards HATS if these aforementioned signs haven't piqued your curiosity yet. The album is one of the most effective I've heard in establishing and preserving a distinct nocturnal mood in quite a long time. From the cool electronics and string accompaniments of the lush opening track Over the Hillside to the grand, shimmering closer Saturday Night, The Blue Nile manage to convey the musical equivalent of a noir, all "neons and the cigarettes...the crowded streets, the empty bars/chimney tops and trumpets" as Buchanan checks off at the end of the album version of "The Downtown Lights." The band was adventurous enough at the time to not merely take advantage of not just Hi-Fi manufacturer/record label Linn's high-end audio technology, which is the reason why even the CD version sounds unimpeachably, impeccably clean, but to also find ways of making atmospheric noise with their basic array of instruments.

"Over the Hillside" sets the mood with Buchanan longing to avoid the dead end trap of "working night and day," setting his sights on the ferry boat into town. The use of strings and saxophones to paint a distinct portrait of the city runs into a quasi-industrial percussion as Buchanan finds himself shifting from a lovestruck wail ("Tomorrow I will be there/Oh you wait and see") to a sudden sense of vulnerability and resignation: "I can't go on and I can't go back/Don't seem so matter of fact/I tried and tried to make good sense/What's the good to try it all again?" I listen to Jens Lekman more recently to get a sense this similar sort of believably romantic feeling.

The humming keyboards and sparkling background noise throughout "The Downtown Lights" would sound overtly synthetic in lesser hands, but here it's just plain majestic. Buchanan handles the vocals with restrained but convincing passion, managing to sell lines like "There is just one thing I can say/Nobody loves you this way" and "Let's walk in the cool evening light/Wrong or right/Be at my side" by using the hushed conviction of his vocals. The tempo picks up for the last minute or so, with the addition of funk-styled guitars and a major lift in the keyboards. Buchanan plays rippling guitar against piano and the sounds of low synth horns on the quaint "Let's Go Out Tonight," which hinges on the singer's desire to understand "Why don't you say what's so wrong tonight?" Both "The Downtown Lights" and "Let's Go Out Tonight" attempt to create a sense of emotional reconciliation by finding the bright spots in the city, giving Buchanan's work a tonal poetic sense that he complements well with his vocals, especially with the way he croons the words to the latter.

The piano-centric "Headlights on the Parade" takes a similar route, but the increased emphasis on rhythm, particularly in regards to the role of the bass, pulls the song into more of a straight gospel feel to it, as Buchanan seems to profess his allegiances to both of his romantic loves, because, as Buchanan senses it, "only love will survive." The epic scale of this song doesn't work as well as I hoped it would as compared to the other songs on this album, with the energy flagging for the final stretch, but at least for the first four-and-a-half minutes, it's undoubtedly uplifting and weaves a spell.

The weathered ruminations that start to occur with From a Late Night Train, the album's most sparse, soulful ballad, sense the end of love. Having already ventured over the hillside and into the downtown metropolis, Buchanan finds himself alone and away from the rain-soaked pavement, taking in the outside sights from the window of little towns and people on their way home. "It's over now/I know it's over/But I can't let go." If it sounds pedestrian on writing here, that's only because the full effect comes when Buchanan's voice mixes with the fragile sound of the trumpets and keyboards that surround him, and it's an atmosphere that is tough to explain without making it sound like merely easy listening.

Seven A.M. unfolds in the same upbeat but subtle fashion as "Headlights on the Parade," with a particularly noticeable bass groove and Buchanan's hopeless romanticism bordering on fanaticism. He can't even help but conjure up the image of the traffic signals before the instrumentation ventures into the same guitar-powered crescendo as "The Downtown Lights."

At last, the album reaches its questionably euphoric end point on Saturday Night. On the previous tune, Buchanan was pondering "Where is the love?" He seems to find it again with this song, or at least the courage of his convictions to rekindle an old flame: "Quarter to five/When the storefronts are closed in paradise/Meet me outside the Cherry Light/You and I walk away." However, love and hope could finally just be a state of mind for the protagonist, and the cries of "Who do you love? Who do you really love?" are presumably done from a distance. The evocative, dreamy musical backdrop belies these ambiguities in waves of guitar, distorted bass and a synthesized orchestral accompaniment.

In the end, HATS feels more like a four-and-a-half star album than a five-star one. It's not a concrete masterpiece, but its very close, and I found it a strong enough follow up to A Walk Across the Rooftops, which I may sit down and review by the end of March. I admit that this is an album driven by mood than by melody, full of epic songs of devotion and longing that, with the exception of the final part of "Headlights on the Parade," are all rendered dramatic without being overwrought. The nature of Buchanan's lyrics may seem a bit too melancholic, not to mention shamelessly romantic, but they're done with a keen mind for musicianship outside of standard requirements for grandstand production values and concrete songcraft. It's now late Saturday night where I'm from, and that nocturnal feeling of recollection and reevaluation is washing over me. I'm starting to feel what Buchanan is, and maybe that's why I'm going to just give this one the benefit of the doubt: five stars. It's better than Boys and Girls but not quite So.