As Morrissey, someone who has covered Magazine's 'A Song from Under the Floorboards' and was friends with Howard Devoto, once sang, "Reissue! Re-package! Re-package! Re-evaluate the songs!" This is how I feel about an awful lot of retro-reissues which seem to me a very fine way for record companies to dupe more pounds from the people who buy music. A definite sense of buying what I already own..several times.

Touch and Go, no doubt released to coincide with the reformation of Magazine and upcoming gigs in Glasgow, Manchester, and Oxford, feels a little cynical. Virgin have already issued the back-catalogue twice on cd, as well as the compilations Rays and Hail , Scree, and Where the Power Is , and not forgetting 2000's box-set Maybe It's Right to Be Nervous Now. Like last year's reissue of the Peel Sessions I feel no need to buy this as I already have it. Several times.

Obviously the songs here are fantastic and Magazine more than warrant rediscovery: it's very hard to fault any release that includes songs as great as 'About the Weather,' 'Permafrost,' 'Shot By Both Sides,' and 'Sweetheart Contract'. Barry Adamson's bass-playing is as mind-blowing as that of peers Derek Forbes (Simple Minds) or Mick Karn (Japan) and the late, great John McGeoch was clearly the king of post-punk guitarists.

The selection here takes in album track, a-side and b-side..but so have the earlier compilations. I don't buy the 'digitally remastered' claim, though if you can't find any of the other compilations..maybe. With the recent Peel Sessions release I have a sneaking suspicion that Virgin are just repacking Maybe It's Right to be Nervous Now over two releases. I'm not sure why a two-disc anthology is required; surely a single disc compilation like Rays and Hail or Where the Power Is would have worked better as a primer for the uninitiated? It would have been nicer for previously unreleased material or a remastered version of Magazine's great live album Play.

I'm sure the old compilations aren't that hard to find and don't sound very different to me; like EMI's Radiohead cash-in last year, you can download these tracks yourself already. Alternately, you could just buy all four Magazine studio albums - reissued with relevant bonus tracks in 2007 - and save yourself the bother?