Back to Boomtown: Classic Rats Hits

To coincide with their 2013 reunion, Irish new wave legends the Boomtown Rats offered up their fifth greatest-hits collection in Back to Boomtown: Classic Rats Hits. The usual suspects like "Rat Trap," "She's So Modern," and "I Don't Like Mondays" are all present, sounding nice and punchy with their updated Abbey Road remasters. While their 2003 anthology The Best of the Boomtown Rats was a bit more thorough, the draw for fans here is the addition of two brand new tracks penned by bandleader Bob Geldof. Their first new material in decades, opening cut "The Boomtown Rats" is a strange electronic club banger that feels immediately out of place, though the other new addition, "Back to Boomtown," holds up quite nicely and is delivered with the kind of ragged moxie the band was known for in their heyday. While the two new cuts might not be reason enough to add yet another reshuffled Rats compilation to your collection, Back to Boomtown still serves as a solid introduction to the band. ~ Timothy Monger