Finally, the long promised series of Replacements Twin Tone reissues have surfaced, along with a wealth of bonus material.

Of the four, it’s Let It Be, the crowning glory of the Minnesota quartet’s career, which holds up the best after all these years. The opening punch of ‘I Will Dare’ still hits as hard and the overall impression is of a band that had really hit its stride and found its feet.

There will never be as heartfelt an ode to teenage angst as Paul Westerberg’s ‘Unsatisfied’, the kind of aching song that he would go on to make his calling card. The bonus material isn’t as throwaway as one might expect, but it is definitely bonus material.

To add anything else to Let It Be’s 11 songs would be to mess with brilliance. It’s a shame that The Replacements never had their day in the sun, but hindsight suggests they were always meant to be the loveable underdogs - and they weren’t going to argue with that.

Mark Grassick