HOW hard it is to keep up with the prolific David Gedge and his Cinerama mini-dramas. Here's another album of post-Wedding Present guitars and soundtrack orchestration, this one a compilation of the Leeds love factory's second batch of EPs. Its release, in a cinematic sleeve with echoes of Jean-Luc Godard, comes shortly after this summer's Torino album. Given the likelihood that these records may have escaped you, this catch-up comes in handy. Placed chronologically, the running order lacks the coherence of a studio album, yet Gedge's gift for a classic pop melody makes for another witty, world-weary journey to the war zone of love and sex, a place of romance and quickies, restless hearts and heartbreak, adulterous trysts and broken trust. The four A-sides travel from grunge (Wow) to epic, string-powered balladry (Superman), via the slinky, sensuous Lollobrigida and lush pop heaven of Your Charms. The B-sides are the joys lying in wait: the playful piano on 10 Denier; Sean Hughes popping up for a spoken-word coda to Sly Curl's wistful tale of childhood romance; Gedge and Sally Murrell charting the meltdown of a relationship in the eerie duet Reel 2, Dialogue 2; and adding nails to The Carpenters' Yesterday Once More.

Updated: 08:59 Thursday, October 03, 2002