The world needs five remastered, enhanced and repackaged Sweet albums like it needs the monocle.

Though generally perceived as puppets of the Mike Chapman/Nicky Chinn production line, Sweet suffered Monkees-like yearnings for self-determination, and by the time of Give Us a Wink and Off the Record in 1976/77, they were writing their own material and trying to be Black Sabbath.

Free of Chapman and Chinn, they were also liberated from the burden of making hits (though they had written the 1975 smash Fox on the Run), and were in terminal decline.

What's particularly bizarre about these reissues is that the band's glam-rock aces - Blockbuster, Ballroom Blitz, Hell Raiser and Teenage Rampage - weren't originally included on the albums and only appear here as bonus tracks. Stick to The Very Best of Sweet, and treat with scorn all attempts to convince you that they were ever supposed to be an albums band.