Cornershop may have taken an eight-year break from releasing albums between 2012's Urban Turban: The Singhles Club and 2020's England Is a Garden, but they certainly weren't idle. Between running their label Ample Play, supporting political causes, and issuing an easy listening version of their 1993 record Hold On It Hurts (titled Hold On It's Easy), the duo of Tjinder Singh and Ben Ayres definitely had a lot going on. Amidst this whirl of activity, they also spent a great deal of time and effort writing and recording songs -- right around 40 in the end. After narrowing it down to the best of the batch and giving them a polish, they titled the sparkling result England Is a Garden. It's their most cohesive and powerful record yet, full of songs that have a hearty punch to go along with their typically sharp hooks. Alternating between tracks that have a driving, T. Rex-ian beat and rollicking mid-tempo groovers, the record is a blast of joyous rock & roll from start to finish. It kicks off with one of their best songs, the stomping, glammy "St Marie Under Canon," then delivers one bracing shot after another. Sometimes Stones-tough and swaggering ("No Rock Save in Roll," "I'm a Wooden Soldier"), sometimes more gentle and pastoral (the flute- and sitar-led "Highly Amplified"), and always about one second away from knocking out another hit to rival "Brimful of Asha" (like on the breezy "The Cash Money" or the sun-dappled rocker "One Uncareful Lady Owner").

1		St Marie Under Canon
2		Slingshot
3		No Rock: Save in Roll
4		Everywhere That Wog Army Roam
5		King Kongs
6		Highly Amplified
7		England Is a Garden
8		Cash Money
9		Morning Ben
10		I'm a Wooden Soldier
11		One Uncareful Lady Owner
12		The Holy Name