by Dave Thompson
The follow-up to 1975's Use Your Imagination, It's Better Than Working caught Mud continuing to pursue the twin directions laid out by their most recent hits -- one eye on a distinctly Showaddywaddy-shaped brand of rock & roll revivalism, and the other firmly grasping the soft rock softball that had served former stablemates Smokey so well. Neither was it an altogether desultory decision -- &Night on the Tiles& handed the band one more in the long sequence of hit singles that had sustained them since 1973, while a taste of Mud's eye for the unusual was delivered by an unlikely cover of Alex Harvey's &Vambo Rools.& &Beating Round the Bush& and the amusingly titled &Blagging Boogie Blues,& too, captured more than a soupçon of the quartet's early endearing goofiness, rendering It's Better Than Working a stronger album than might have been expected -- even if it still can't hold a candle to a decent, career-length hits collection.