Tears For Fears were a curio when this album was originally released. Keeping company with pastel-suited guys on boats like Duran Duran, the superficial sophistication of Spandau Ballet and the white smiles and tight white shorts of Wham, they kind of fitted in, but with a darker, more intelligent edge.

It was an edge which had them bridging the gap between Echo and The Bunnymen and grinning one hit idiots thankfully now forgotten, and whilst Simon Le Bon ponced around singing nonsense about girls called Rio, Tears For Fears imparted morose lines like “The dreams in which I’m dying are the best I’ve ever had”.

Fast forward six years and you find a band whose critical fall from grace was swift and drastic. Acid house was in, indulgent four year gaps between albums crammed with Beatles pastiches were most definitely out. Acid cleared out a lot of older established rock acts, and Tears For Fears were part of said clear out. It was a cruel twist of fate that could have been avoided if they didn’t spend the subsequent four years after their period of biggest success obsessing over hi-hat sounds for months on end.

With the benefit of several elapsed decades, their influence is now clear to see; Editors, Bombay Bicycle Club, Coldplay, in fact any band of kids playing eighties tinged indie, it all begins here. Although this, their debut, is nowhere near as fully formed as the colossal selling worldwide hit, 1985′s classic Songs From the Big Chair, it contains some of the catchiest songs about primal scream therapy techniques, broken relationships, childhood psychological issues and postnatal depression you’ll find, and despite this subject matter, it spawned hit after hit.

There’s no denying The Hurting has aged, course it has, its thirty, and being thirty means you get fretless bass, electronic drum pads, synths and sax solos alongside really bad videos. But as pop has proven to eat itself, The Hurting has remained relevant through the continuing slew of acts seeking to add poppy choruses their existential angst.

As a duo, Curt Smith was given the poppier songs to sing – “Mad World”, “Pale Shelter”, “Change” – but as principle songwriter, Roland Orzabal tackled the more brooding introspective material. It’s these tracks that really stand out now.

“Ideas as Opiates”, with its minimal electronic beat and yearning vocals, shows off a deep and artistic side that the singles didn’t indicate was there, while “Suffer The Children” and “Watch Me Bleed” are guitar based indie tracks, the lack of synths has these tracks still sounding contemporary, and the wailing saxophone solo on “Memories Fade” instantly dates the track, it still retains its side one, track five charm, the sad one before you had to get up to turn the album over.

The deluxe package has another two CDs of various versions of the album’s ten tracks in session and live form alongside extended versions and b-sides. But none of this adds anything to the album – if anything, they result in musical clutter due to there often being multiple versions of the same flipping song. There’s also a live concert DVD, which is great, if you like horrendous eighties graphics and skinny session musicians in makeup.

However, if for some bizarre reason you find the existence of Hurts acceptable, grab yourself a copy of The Hurting to see how synth pop should really be done.