He may have been overshadowed back in the 60s by his rivals in the Beatles and the Stones, but Kinks frontman Ray Davies is now generally recognised as one of the greatest songwriters of all time. Strange, then, that his vast back catalogue has taken this long to inspire a tribute album - and stranger still that it's a predominantly American set of bands (Ron Sexsmith, Lambchop, Fountains Of Wayne) that's lined up to pay homage to this most quintessentially British of pop artists. To their credit, they've steered clear of most of the over-familiar hits in favour of revisiting some half-forgotten gems such as 'Big Sky', 'Better Things' and 'Fancy'. Unfortunately, only a handful of them really come off - Davies's songs sound strange without his own sardonic vocals, and attempts to give them new arrangements end up backfiring more often than not. Almost as if in acknowledgment of this, the final track features the Godfather of Britpop himself singing 'Waterloo Sunset' with Blur's Damon Albarn - a touching curio, but, like the rest of this album, interesting rather than essential.
