Pete Farnan knows the double edge of rock'n'roll memories. "We played a gig recently," the songwriter recalls with amusement. "We started with Great Wall and I heard this bloke in the crowd say, 'This band has only got two songs and this is one of 'em.' Fifty minutes later he was still dancing." God knows what the hazy pop connoisseur may have remembered as the "other" jewel in Boom Crash Opera's crown, but there's an excellent chance he'll find it among the nine or ten hits on the great Australian rock band's first ever acoustic album, Dancing In The Storm.

Boom Crash Opera is one of our most underestimated pop phenomena: multi-platinum radio invaders effectively derailed by their own success after 89's landmark second LP, These Here Are Crazy Times. At the height of their trajectory, Pete remembers, every song he wrote with co-founder Richard Pleasance was laboriously tweaked in the mix by corporate committee.

By comparison, Dancing In The Storm felt like a slightly surreal breeze. After a single day of pre-production, it was recorded in three days in February at Richard's country Victorian studio with an emphasis on "the songs that came easy, without too much thinking or mucking around."

That said, with the benefit of a further 20 years' experience, the two writer-producers found their old creative dynamic in feisty form as they traded mixes over the Internet. "I'd say to Richard, where did those extra guitars come from?' He'd say, 'What about all those backing vocals of yours?'" Well, a certain grandeur was always a staple of the BCO sound. Dale Ryder has that kind of voice. Peter Maslen (drums), Greg O'Connor (keys) and Ian Tilley (later bass)were all to the stadium born. And while each of those elements is in robust shape here, so is a more subtle kind of power.

Classics like Onion Skin, Hands Up In The Air and The Best Thing are relieved of '80s excess and imbued with new weight courtesy of Dale's strikingly seasoned voice, the weathered timbre of the band's trademark unison backing vocals, and the precise acoustic textures of guitar, oud, sitar and banjo-mandolin. Maybe more remarkable than the monster hooks of Bettadaze, In The Morning and Get Out of the House are the revelations of lesser-known songs. If you judge the calibre of a band by its B-sides, check out the urgent groove and sinuous melody of Ordinary Heaven and the filmic grain of the atmospheric closing track, Caught Between Two Towns.

"A lot of this was a surprise to us, as much as anybody," Pete reflects. "It's hard to remember how we were perceived back then but when you bring it all back to the songs, it all still sounds pretty good to us."

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