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When people talk about early-’80s British guitar-rock, they almost never mention the Sound. Echo & The Bunnymen? Sure. The Chameleons? Maybe. Tracey Ullman. Of course. But not the Sound.
A quick bio: They turned out three brittle, brilliant albums from 1980 to 1982, including the promising debut Jeopardy; the rest of the decade was spent trying to catch up with their high-profile peers, and when that didn’t work, the group disbanded. Lead singer Adrian Borland committed sucide in 1999, prompting a re-released of the Sound’s back catalog, which is how we found out about them. Below, we present two of the best cuts–the nervy “Heartland” and the spaced-out “Contact The Fact”–though you really owe it to yourself to get on Amazon.co.uk and check out Jeopardy or From The Lions Mouth.
The Sound – Heartland [MP3, link expired]
The Sound – Contact The Fact [MP3, link expired]
Wonderful, wonderful. I could (and have) go about these guys for days. Good song choices both but if there’s room for a third, I humbly suggest “Monument.”
I find it interesting how these days, you can add an “s” to an already-known band and become somewhat famous (The Sound vs The Sounds). What if we did it the other way? We could have new band names like The Black Eyed Pea, The Rake and Rides.
Holy Crap! I didn’t think anyone else had even heard of The Sound!
However, THE best song by The Sound is “Winter” from the Shock of Daylight EP.
And the cover to “From the Lion’s Mouth” is one of the best of all time, imoho
I’ve kept those three albums on vinyl for 27 years or so (and the 12″ of “eye of the lens”) and have been waiting for a CD release. Also worth checking out for a perfect example of the C.S.A sound is the 7′ single “Do The Empty House” I saw the Angels opening for U2 at the University of East Anglia in late 81 or early 82. Without the killer Pete Wilson drum sound, they didn’t quite measure up to the recordings. At least no one will have to put up with the old “yea the records were OK , but they never captured the real live energy of the band” chestnut, the records are the best exampales of what the band could do.
A band that had the habbit of using dynamics to great efect, not someting that was very common at the time, and almost unknown in these days of “master everything as loud as possible” I would humbly submit “missiles” as the next best track.