Ask most people about Katrina and the Waves and the best they'll muster is a few bars of "Walking on Sunshine", or perhaps a foggy memory that they were a one-hit wonder from the mid-eighties. Fewer still will cite them as Kimberley Rew's first post-Soft Boys project. No matter how you slice it, they've essentially been lost to the ages. The Original Recordings 1983-1984 isn't going to start a Katrina stampede, but it improves upon their preeminent legacy as kings and queen of the hackneyed "Hits of the '80s" circuit. They never conjured anything better than "Walking on Sunshine", but the band jangled out their fair share of iridescent pop gems on their first two, Canadian-only LPs: near-hit "Going Down to Liverpool" is a blinding three minutes of chewy guitar pop goodness, and the fantastic "Red Wine and Whiskey" is a wild-eyed drinking ode. Eighties enthusiasts, power-pop nerds and rabid Kimberley Rew fans notwithstanding, this collection is a long-overdue introduction to one of the most underrated guitar bands of the Reagan administration.