The main track and ep title is 'Everlasting Love Affair', it's a cracking tune, choc-a-block full of hooks and harmonies.
Paul's voice sounds as young and as fresh as ever, and it really is The Blades at their melodic best.
Brian's pumping bass in the chorus is pure Motown while Jake never strays from the basics in his own unselfish way.
The song also includes the by now customary catchy opening brass riff from Frank and Paul G.
However a real surprise comes in the middle-eight as Paul sings: ''Tears would fall like summer rain from the sky'' there's about 10 seconds of violins, pizzicato strings, cellos, layered harmonies and piccolo trumpets courtesy of Frank that would give the Beatles a la 'Penny Lane' a run for their money. It sounds......fab.
And that's just the music......
The lyrics would make for a good pop quiz in themselves given that all of the words in the verses are made up of album titles from some
of Paul's favourite artists, an example from the second verse is: ''Get Happy All Mod Cons and Smile.''
So the 'Everlasting Love Affair' of the title is actually Paul's love affair with music and the artists who inspired him. He sings in the chorus:
''Our love's a philharmonic celebration of all that magic in the air, our love's a pop song of a short duration, an everlasting love affair''.
A Smokey Robinson album is mentioned, along with album titles by Squeeze, The Undertones, XTC and many more including my own favourites The Clash plus a few that you might not recognise and that might surprise you.....where's the great George Byrne when you need him!
As part of the game is guessing the artist from the album title, here's one you mightn't get without 'Google', I certainly didn't:
'Twist Uptown'??????...I'll tell you near the end of this post.

In contrast to the full production of the track 1, track 2 'We'll Go On' is about as spartan as you can get.
Just Paul's vocal over a single acoustic guitar - played almost busking style by Conor - it's unusual for The Blades and not what
you might expect but it's damn catchy too. When I asked Paul what it was about lyrically, he said: ''Just keep going Mill, just keep moving and
don't let the bastards grind you down''. So there you go, oh and it clocks in at a brisk 2 minutes 23 seconds.
Now, have I got (old)news for you.....
The two old Blades songs which the band completely re-recorded for this epic ep are 'Revelations' and 'The Bride', they sound really
new and vibrant, hard to imagine that the originals were recorded over 35 years ago.
Over to Paul as to why: ''Although I like the songs , I was never really happy with the recordings of those two numbers as I didn't think we did them justice . So I thought that an EP with two new numbers and two old ones would be a good idea and would give me a chance to record Revelations and The Bride and have them sound like I wanted them to sound all those years ago. Basically the reaction I'm aiming for
from the people who know the originals is for them to cock their ears and wonder whether they're listening to the original or not, but to
come to the conclusion that what they're hearing actually sounds better than the original...well that's the plan (laughs) but I'm really happy with the results and I know that Blades supporters can trust me not to fuck around too much with their songs (laughs again).''
For what it's worth in my opinion the new recordings do sound better, somehow the brass on 'Revelations' is even more Dexy's sounding than before, which is a good thing, and the drums sound crisper on both new and old tracks. Paul's vocal on 'The Bride Wore White' definitely belies the 35 year gap from then till now, and again his singing on this track is very like the the original but even better...and btw, Jake sticks (puns we got 'em!) fairly closely to Pat Larkin's original drum pattern and even manages in my opinion to improve on it slightly with a few subtle fills before each pre-chorus on 'The Bride'. He (Jake) also neatly (almost) replicates the original drums he played himself on 'Revelations' which incidentally was Jake and Brian's first proper studio outing with the band - thanks for the info Brian - I say 'almost' because again I think the drumming is even better on this track too.
So that's the news, my only minor complaint is a seasonal one, I think the main track 'Everlasting Love Affair' is fantastic and would have made a great summer single, so over to Paul for the last word and his response: 'The Blades are a band for all ages Mill.... and ALL SEASONS, plus I can't be waiting around for the summer.''
'Everlasting Love Affair', you'll fall in love too....oh and 'Twist Uptown' was the debut album by The Crystals, bet you all knew that anyway.
I kid you not, I'm absolutely buzzing!

Mill Butler, November 2017