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The second of the Saint Etienne Deluxe Edition re-issue album packages, and a recording process that started after smash single He’s On The Phone, Continental has, until now, only been available as an expensive import. Only released in Japan in 1997, it’s arguably the most disjointed of all Bob, Pete and Sarah’s long players, but that’s because, it is in effect, a compilation album.

Largely made in the Et’s ‘wilderness years’ of 1996 and 1997, the original release included the band’s highest-positioned UK chart hit He’s On The Phone, a cover of Gary Numan’s Stormtrooper In Drag (surely a contender for the best-ever song title), and demo versions of Can’t Stop Now and Home, tracks from Sarah Cracknell’s excellent debut album Lipslide, which she was recording at the time.

As with the other Deluxe Edition re-issues in this series, the London trio have handpicked some long-forgotten, alternative version, and unreleased gems to make up the second disc in the two-disc package. Where Did Our Love Go, We Could Have It All, and Under Her Spell are all premiered here, alongside gentle B-sides Groveley Road and Is It True and faster flips including How I Learned To Love The Bomb. There’s also a demo version of 2008 re-released single Burnt Out Car (the song originally dates from Continental’s first incarnation), and the France-only single Lover Plays The Bass.

Two of the tracks here also formed part of the 1995 St Etienne Daho release, Reserection. Teaming up with French singing star Etienne Daho, the EP saw tracks from the band re-worked and given Gallic alter egos. Accident became He’s On The Phone (itself a re-working of Daho’s hit Week-End A Rome), while Suburban Autumn Lieutenant was given a new lease of life as Le Basier Français.

Saint Etienne knob-twiddler Bob Stanley likens Continental to being ‘a patchwork more than a compilation, but it all hung together, and a few people thought it was the best thing we’d done.’ While maybe not the latter, Continental more than justifies its place in the Et’s re-released series, tying up many Saint Etienne loose ends at a period when it appeared to the public that nothing much was happening with the band.

Its lack of cohesion is one of Continental’s best points, rounding up those errant bits and pieces of Saint Etienne history. As Kieron Tyler rightly states in the new liner notes that are slipped behind disc two, Continental allows the ‘wilderness years to be redefined as vital to the Saint Etienne story.’ And what of the next stops on the Saint Etienne Deluxe Edition train? So Tough and Sound of Water follow in July.