"Hope" was Anything Box's third album, though only the second that managed to get a public release due to issues with the Epic label. It was released in 1993, it's very much a product of its time. It sits very comfortably in the same pigeonhole as albums like OMD's "Liberator", Mesh's "Original 91-93", Erasure's "I Say I Say Say" or perhaps New Order's "Republic" without the guitars. The production is perhaps closest to Vince Clarke's early 90's work, the vocalist has just a slight touch of Marc Almond about his tone (but Marc Almond in a relaxed mood), while the songwriting is closer to Andy McCluskey's resolute optimism from the same period. I'm a child of that era and it's a winning formula for me- pure energetic songwriting that revels in 4-chord patterns and synthetic bleeps, and puts programming on a pedestal, but doesn't forget the importance of good verse-chorus songwriting.

The tongue-in-cheek mock live concert intro of "Entrance" isn't really followed through in the rest of the tunes. There's an unabashed non-ironic sincerity to the whole thing which, coupled with strong melodies, makes up for some of the slightly more mediocre production touches. Stand-out tunes include "Where Is Love And Happiness", "A Moment's Shifting", and the naive yet somehow quite profound closer "Life Is Fun". Ballad "Blue Little Rose" is arguably a weak point. The last three tracks on the album step away from the four-minute pop song structure and are a little more mellow and slightly indulgent, and while the hooks aren't as strong at this end of the album, I wouldn't call it filler.

Anything Box are still a recording and gigging entity. This may be a dated-sounding album now, twenty-three years on, but it's a time capsule of a slightly lesser-known album from some of electropop's golden years, and if it passed you by first time around, this re-release is a chance to catch up. I'm not convinced it has enough of a classic to warrant the luxuriant splatter vinyl re-release treatment it's getting through the Russia-based Other Voices Records, but nevertheless it's a very strong, solid 45-minute album, definitely worth a download if your CD's of early 90's OMD or Erasure albums are getting worn out.