[7] Helped by intensive touring and the added mystique of their releases being on import in England and the United States, the band's reputation was growing.

And when the Bangles covered "Going Down to Liverpool", a song from Katrina and the Waves' first album, major record labels started to take an interest.

[9] The label wanted to make some of the songs more single-worthy, particularly "Going Down to Liverpool" and "Walking on Sunshine", so the band did some recording and mixing in London with producer Pat Collier, who had worked on their first two albums.

"[10] Ultimately, Capitol decided to outsource a remix, and the tracks were given to engineer Scott Litt at the Power Station in New York.

"[1] Talking with Goldmine magazine in 2021 about working with Litt on "Walking on Sunshine", Leskanich said, "Boy did he wave a magic wand over it, because it was his idea to start with the drums and said that the DJs will go crazy with that sound and it will wake up America.

[12] In two contemporary reviews for Village Voice and Playboy, critic Robert Christgau wrote, "For a while I thought the only thing Capitol had done right was sign them, but between the exuberant Katrina Leskanich and the surefire Kimberley Rew this band would be hard for any label to fuck up: not one of the twenty songs on the band's two Attic LPs ... is a loser."

Christgau felt that, as a songwriter, Rew has an "unerring knack for up-to-the-minute Sixties-style hooks" and writes "rock-outsider lyrics that never get obtrusively specific," while Leskanich has "a voice so big and enthusiastic she could make Barry Manilow's songs sound like Holland-Dozier-Holland."

The "tricky" new version of "Machine Gun Smith" makes up for the "Motown horns" added to "Walking on Sunshine," Christgau said, and the re-recorded "hyped-up" drums on the latter "don't really hurt anything.

"[14][16] Commenting on the songs being re-recorded or remixed, Trouser Press wrote, "In most cases, it's an improvement, exposing untapped realms of both pop and power, but the second "Going Down to Liverpool" obliterates the atmosphere and the hooky melody of the original in an absurdly overheated arrangement.