As independent music production snowballs, we risk missing the chance to hear hundreds of great bands that, for one reason or another, fall through the cracks. None of this British sextet's output (one album, The Town and The City, and a scattering of singles) has ever had a proper American release -- nor, at this writing, has this revelatory compilation, which spans 1999-2002 and collects most of the tracks from the long out-of-print singles.

This group's size, gentle sound and boy/girl co-vocalists (Jamie Holman and Stacey McKenna) will positively remind you of Belle and Sebastian. The earliest cuts (especially "Ballad of the Bootboys") register like pleasant If You're Feeling Sinister outtakes. Fortunately, the comparison soon seems irrelevant. McKenna may sound like Isobel Campbell, but she's a much stronger singer, closer to Sinead O'Connor with a hint of Saint Etienne's Sarah Cracknell. With McKenna's help, the band applies a rough edge to their sweetness, as if The Beautiful South had recorded for Sarah Records. "Swing Low Stuart" opens innocently twee, but the lyrics slant towards satire (and may be a playful jab at B and S leader Stuart Murdoch): "Stuart's the epitome / of white boy, middle class monogamy / he'd like to meet some deviants / he invested in some leather pants." After the third verse, feedback gradually seeps in and threatens to overtake the song, creating a sublime tension with the amiable melody underneath.

Many tracks evoke the sad beauty of a rainy day in a small town ("Second Rate Republic (Demo)", "Wedding Song"), while expressing that sense of entrapment, malaise and yearning to break from routine. Some tunes cascade and glisten with ba-da-das ("North"), a few sound equally lilting and prickly ("It's A Girl's World") and others shift between intimate verses and loud, confrontational choruses to get the point across ("My Life As a Car Crash"). All of the A and B-sides cohere into a shimmering whole; if the Blondie goof "My Perfect Girlfriend (Demo)" (consisting of little more than McKenna wailing, "Debbie, Debbie Harry, Debbie Harry" over a garage-rock vamp) doesn't mesh well with the rest, at least it's charming and brief.

The band's finest songs begin simply and quietly, often vacillating between two chords as they slowly build to magnificent heights. Wisely placed at the start of this non-chronological set, "Slender" opens with Holman nearly whispering in hushed reverence. Instruments appear one by one as the title's meaning shifts from physical size to chance. McKenna makes her entrance at the third verse, and her lyrics heartbreakingly answer Holman's as the music gains in volume and urgency. On the concluding "Give Me a Riot in the Summertime", the set-up is similar, with McKenna repeating Holman's first verses, but the music is less ethereal. With guitars echoing "Jumping Jack Flash", the track's sentiment seems the obverse of dream-pop: sobering, resolute and visceral.

With an album of new material in the works, Tompaulin seem adamant not to be forgotten, and their confidence is deeply felt throughout this compilation. It's well worth the import price if you're outside the UK; I'm already trying to get the funds together for a copy of The Town and The City.