MIKE Flowers, William Shatner, Peter Sellers, Rolf Harris, your cover versions were a cheeky one-trick joke.

Nouvelle Vague could have fallen into the same novelty trap with their bossa-nova souffls when whisking British New Wave hits into light supper-club jazz on their self-titled debut.

However, Parisian producers Marc Collin and Olivier Libaux and their fragrant chanteuses knew that camp irony soon fades but sentiment lasts.

Last time they gave Joy Division and The Undertones unexpected feminine sensuality; this time they turn darker, finding the fragile heart in the gloom of Bauhaus's Bela Lugosi's Dead and surpassing Visage's lip-glossed electronica with the grave accordion of Fade To Grey.

American balladeer Grant-Lee Phillips, erstwhile leader of Grant Lee Buffalo, is similarly magnetised by the underground 1980s, sharing one choice of cover in Echo and The Bunnymen's The Killing Moon.

Where Nouvelle Vague haunt the shadows with spooky nocturnal bird song, Phillips prefers stately semi-acoustic grace and hushed introspection, a running theme to his "personal mix tape".

This album is more even in tone, full of wonderment and, like the latterday Johnny Cash, always aware of the sands of time moving too fast.

The further he strays from the originals the better, especially on The Pixies' Wave Of Mutilation, The Cure's Boys Don't Cry and Age Of Consent, the best single New Order never released.